Certainty about Graves’s "disintegration" – by which he meant "disintegration of my post-war personality" – began to crystallize rapidly in his mind as soon as he had got to know Laura Riding, whose personality – however anyone may wish to assess it – was, although unhymned except by him, both explosively freakish and characterized by acute though not learned intelligence.

– Martin Seymour-Smith

But there was the Devil himself. Having accepted her invitation to sit down and warm himself, he was obviously waiting for her to say something. So she said "Now what do you want?" "My dear," he answered with a confidential slant of his head, "I want nothing but your happiness." "Humph!" she snapped at him, "you can’t have it."

– Laura Riding

Alas for obstinate doubt: the dread

Of error in supposing my heart freed,

All care for her stone dead!

Ineffably will shine the hills and radiant coast

Of early mornings when she is gone indeed,

Her divine elements disbanded, disembodied

And through the misty orchards in love spread –

When she is gone indeed –

But still among them moves her restless ghost.

– Robert Graves