It isn't only the terror everywhere, and the fear of being conscious of it, that freezes people. It's more than that. People know they are in a society dead or dying.

Mother's room, and mother's need for privacy become a valuable lesson in respect for other people's rights.

Loneliness, she thought, was craving for other people's company. But she did not know that loneliness can be an unnoticed cramping of the spirit for lack of companionship.

I am increasingly afflicted by vertigo where words mean nothing

Do you know what people really want? Everyone, I mean. Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who'd be kind to me. That's what people really want, if they're telling the truth.

Intelligence forbids tears.

Novels give you the matrix of emotions, give you the flavour of a time in a way formal history cannot.