“Silent gratitude means little to anyone.”

Encouraging open expression of appreciation toward others · Written observation

• Communication
• Expression
• Gratitude

“You are all a lost generation.”

Capturing the disillusionment of the post-war creative circle · Remark to Ernest Hemingway

• Disillusionment
• History
• Youth

“One must dare to be happy.”

Framing joy as a conscious choice requiring courage · Conversation

• Attitude
• Courage
• Happiness

“I do want to get rich, but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich.”

Expressing a preference for artistic freedom over commercial compromise · Reflecting on creative independence

• Ambition
• Independence
• Money

“It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.”

Reflecting on the essential role of quiet contemplation in the creative process · Everybody's Autobiography

• Creativity
• Genius
• Time

“I write for myself and strangers. The strangers, of course, are more important.”

Her belief in the imaginative audience beyond familiar circles · Essay, Lectures in America

• Expression
• Readers
• Writing

“We are always the same age inside.”

A reflection on the continuity of inner identity across time · Conversation, commonly attributed

• Age
• Identity
• Self

“I like a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.”

Expressing a preference for inward attention over passive appreciation of scenery · Memoir / conversation

• Nature
• Solitude

“The creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he has become a classic.”

Defending artistic innovation before it receives public recognition · Essay

• Art
• Fame

“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.”

A prescient observation about information overload and diminished judgement · Essay / literary remark

• Time
• Truth

“A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.”

Suggesting that artists should remain alert to perceptions beyond their usual medium · Conversation / literary remark

• Art
• Poetry

“There is no there there.”

A haunting expression of displacement, absence, and the loss of a familiar place · Memoir

• Memory
• Solitude