The Door

by Magda Szabó

For as long as I felt that Emerence’s attachment to the dog was based on her passionate need to serve,

I know now, what I didn’t then, that affection can’t always be expressed in calm, orderly, articulate ways; and that one cannot prescribe the form it should take for anyone else.

what I consider religion is a sort of Buddhism, a mere respect for tradition, and that even my morality is just discipline, the result of training at home,

creativity requires a state of

grace. So many things are required for it to succeed — stimulus and composure, inner peace and a kind of bitter-sweet excitement — and these elements were missing.