there is no sin punished more implacably by nature than the sin of resistance to change.

I had the feeling . . . that my experience was very different from other people’s. (Are we all under this illusion?)

The signs that presage growth, so similar, it seems to me, to those in early adolescence: discontent, restlessness, doubt, despair, longing, are interpreted falsely as signs of decay. In youth one does not as often misinterpret the signs; one accepts them, quite rightly, as growing pains. One takes them seriously, listens to them, follows where they lead. ... But in the middle age, because of the false assumption that it is a period of decline, one interprets these life-signs, paradoxically, as signs of approaching death.

We are always bargaining with our feelings so that we can live from day to day.

... once you get beyond the crust of the first pang it is all the same and you can easily bear it. It is just the transition from painlessness to pain that is so terrible.

the issue of war or peace is an issue that concerns not only experts on Foreign Affairs but every citizen of the United States.

These bright roofs, these steep towers, these jewel-lakes, these skeins of railroad line - all spoke to her and she answered. She was glad they were there. She belonged to them and they to her. . . . She had not lost it. She was touching it with her fingertips. This was flying: to go swiftly over the earth you loved, touching it lightly with your fingertips, holding the railroads lines in your hand to guide you, like a skein of wool in a spider-web game - like following Ariadne's thread through the Minotaur's maze, Where would it lead, where?