International relationships are … preordained to be clumsy gestures based on imperfect knowledge.

More from The Strange Necessity, ch. 10

• A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned things is ample.
• All good biography, as all good fiction, comes down to the study of original sin, of our inherent disposition to choose death when we ought to choose life.
• I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.
• Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.
• Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one's own Trojan horse. letter, Aug. 20, 1959. quoted in Victoria Glendinning, Rebecca West: A Life, pt. 5, ch. 8 (1987).
• The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.