Because I want to; because I must; because now and forever more this is where I belong to be.

When one is writing a novel in the first person, one must be that person.

A bad workman blames his tools.

If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.

Why, he wondered, should he remember her suddenly, on such a day, watching the rain falling on the apple trees?

People who mattered could not take the humdrum world. But this was not the world, it was enchantment; and all of it was mine.

...as the slow sea sucked at the shore and then withdrew, leaving the strip of seaweed bare and the shingle churned, the sea birds raced and ran upon the beaches. Then that same impulse to flight seized upon them too. Crying, whistling, calling, they skimmed the placid sea and left the shore. Make haste, make speed, hurry and begone; yet where, and to what purpose? The restless urge of autumn, unsatisfying, sad, had put a spell upon them and they must flock, and wheel, and cry; they must spill themselves of motion before winter came.