my mother, poor fish, wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a week, telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile! why don't you ever smile?" and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the saddest smile I ever saw

Human relationships are strange. I mean, you are with one person a while, eating and sleeping and living with them, loving them, talking to them, going places together, and then it stops.

from the beginning, through the middle years and up to the end: too bad, too bad, too bad.

beware those quick to praise for they need praise in return beware those who are quick to censor they are afraid of what they do not know beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone beware the average man the average woman beware their love, their love is average seeks average

I am not a snob; it is simply that I am not interested with what most people have to say, or what they want to do — mostly with my time.

Well, we lost it, and that’s all there is to that.

Her eyes always had a frantic, lost look. He could never cure her eyes of that.