How sick one gets of being good, how much I should respect myself if I could burst out and make everyone wretched for twenty-four hours embody selfishness. – Alice James
One has a greater sense of degradation after an interview with a doctor than from any human experience. – Alice James
It is an immense loss to have all robust and sustaining expletives refined away from one! At. moments of trial refinement is a feeble reed to lean upon. – Alice James
The success or failure of a life, as far as posterity goes, seems to lie in the more or less luck of seizing the right moment of escape. – Alice James
In marriage there are no manners to keep up, and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism. Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again…. We are not ridiculous to ourselves. We are ageless. That is the luxury of the wedding ring. – Enid Bagnold, Autobiography, 1969