Jean Stafford

I am growing meaner by the hour.

— Jean Stafford

For all practical purposes I left home when I was 7.

— Jean Stafford

Irony, I feel, is a very high form of morality.

— Jean Stafford

“I fell in love with Caligula and now I'm married to Calvin.”

— Jean Stafford

For me, there is nothing worse than the knowledge that my life holds nothing for me but being a writer.

— Jean Stafford

From time to time, I need a rest from the exercitation of my intellect.

— Jean Stafford

He does what I have always needed to have done to me, and that is that he dominates me.

— Jean Stafford

A small silence came between us, as precise as a picture hanging on the wall.

— Jean Stafford

“He whirled round and round in his rapid love; it pricked him on the breastbone like a needle. He wanted to be…

— Jean Stafford

“I read Wolfe’s new book _ The Story of a Novel_ and as usual he stole the whole damn thing from me.…

— Jean Stafford

“It never occurs to her that she will not be a writer and only occasionally does it occur to her, depressingly, that…

— Jean Stafford

You say that you hope I will be recognized as the best novelist of my generation. I want you to know now…

— Jean Stafford

“She wanted them to go together to some hopelessly disreputable bar and to console one another in the most maudlin fashion over…

— Jean Stafford

“To her own heart, which was shaped exactly like a valentine, there came a winglike palpitation, a delicate exigency, and all the…

— Jean Stafford

“If she ever got fat, she thought, or if she ever said anything fat, she would lock herself in a bathroom and…

— Jean Stafford