the cynic is a coward. He foresees all barrenness so that barrenness can never surprise him.

The shell is America's most active contribution to the formation of character. A tough hide. Grow it early.

... and the very folds of the curtains contained secrets and sighs.

Sometimes we reveal ourselves when we are least like ourselves.

Strange, isn't it, that no chemical will give a human being the iridescence that illusions have given them? Give me your hat.

There are books which we read early in life, which sink into our consciousness and seem to disappear without leaving a trace. And then one day we find, in some summing-up of our life and put attitudes towards experience, that their influence has been enormous.

The personal, if it is deep enough, becomes universal, mythical, symbolic.