there was something about that city, though it didn't let me feel guilty that I had no feeling for the things so many others needed. it let me alone.

I would certainly end up forever crying the blues into a coffee cup in a park for old men playing chess or silly games of some sort.

Fay had a spot of blood on the left side of her mouth and I took a wet cloth and wiped it off. Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love.

But then if you lied to a man about his talent just because he was sitting across from you, that was the most unforgivable lie of them all, because that was telling him to go on, to continue which was the worst way for a man without real talent to waste his life, finally. But many people did just that, friends and relatives mostly.

I hated you when it would have taken less courage to love.

they simply never understand, do they, that sometimes solitude is one of the most beautiful things on earth?

sometimes I hate you," she said.