But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grown pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.

People with ambition don't give a damn what other people think of them.

Boys do not leave their boyhood behind when they leave off their school uniform.

What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney?

In this cruel world kindness should always be repaid.

But she had that laugh, and the sound of it was so beautiful that when you heard it, it was as if your eyes saw her through your ears and she was transformed.

Politeness. Now there's a poor man's virtue if ever there was one. What's so admirable about inoffensiveness, I should like to know. After all, it's easily achieved. One needs no particular talent to be polite. On the contrary, being nice is what's left when you've failed at everything else. People with ambition don't give a damn what other people think about them.