Until the raw ingredients of a pudding make a pudding, I shall never believe that the raw material of sensation and thought can make a work of art without the cook's intervening.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they have so many more things to talk about.

And he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow.

Life is either always a tight-rope or a featherbed. Give me a tight-rope.

They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods

Little as she was addicted to solitude, there had come to be moments when it seemed a welcome escape from the empty noises of her life.

If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.