The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the re… - Henry Moore

I feel the conflict still exists in me – but not causing me any difficulty in working, as it did immediately after returning from Italy [in 1925]. In fact I ask myself is this [the] conflict what makes things happen? For it seems to me now that this conflict between the excitement & great impression I got from Mexican sculpture & the love & sympathy I felt for Italian art, represents two opposing sides in me, the 'tough' & the 'tender', & that many other artists have had the same two conflicting sides in their natures.. ..and really I see no difficulty in appreciating both sides & finding them in the same artist. Perhaps an obvious & continuous synthesis will eventually derive in my own work – I can’t say – I can only work as I feel & believe at the time I do the work.

I was in the trenches in the last war [1914 – 1918], & so all the more don’t want to shoot or be shot at, again.. .Although no one can say there’s democracy in England in the real sense of the word, & although British Imperialism has a pretty bloody record, I hate Fascism & Nazism & all its aims & ideology so intensively, that I don’t think I could refuse to help in trying to prevent it from being victorious. However, when the time comes that I’m asked, or have got to do something in this war, I hope it will be something less destructive than taking part in the actual fighting and killing.

Recently I have been working in the country, where, carving in the open air, I find sculpture more natural than in a London studio, but it needs bigger dimensions. A large piece of stone or wood placed almost anywhere at random in a field, orchard, or garden, immediately looks right and inspiring.