Just to be in love seemed the most blissful luxury I had ever known. The thought came to me that perhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return -- that perhaps true loving can never know anything but happiness. For a moment I felt that I had discovered a great truth.

Prayer's a very tricky business.

Sometimes [the expression] old age has a kind of harrowing beauty. But elderly - ugh!

...I have noticed that when things happen in one's imaginings, they never happen in one's life, so I am curbing myself.

But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.

I know all about the facts of life, and I don't think much of them.

How can a young man like to wear a beard?