"I can't get into your mind when you hold it shut, Jerry. I've put every effort and hope of my life into laborious toil for seven years to prepare myself for this work. You speak of 'this writing business' as if it were some whim of the moment. It is serious, Jerry. I believe in myself. I have something to say that no other human being in the world will say, and I've learned how to say it. Other women, similarly equipped physically, might have produced Jerry, but no other woman could have produced that book."
"Then you think the book is more important than Jerry?"
She kept her control with difficulty; he was so wantonly hurting her.
"I think I am here to produce both. One is the child of my body and one is the child of my spirit. They are equally important to me; they are inevitable."
"I can't understand you, Jane. I thought your love for Jerry was the one passion of your life, but that doesn't sound like it."
"We are what we are, Jerry; you can't push back development. I can't unmake you as artist any more than you can unmake me. The only difference is that I don't want to."
"You knew what I was when you married me."
"But how am I different from the person you married, Jerry? I'm what I was yesterday; nothing has changed in our lives; we will work and play and eat and sleep to-morrow as we did yesterday; why do you feel so upset about me?"
"But can't you see that you're a stranger to me? You aren't the kind of woman I thought you were!"
"But do you think I'm a less desirable companion because I've proved that I have a gift that you did not suspect? I am adding something as a contribution to our common life, not taking anything away."