The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts.

Our blindest impulses become evidence of perspicacity when they fall in with the course of events.

Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, old age flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.

Apart from the pleasure of looking at her and listening to her-of enjoying in her what others less discriminatingly but as liberally appreciated-he had the sense, between himself and her, of a kind of free-masonry of precocious tolerance and irony. They had both, in early youth, taken the measure of the world they happened to live in: they knew just what it was worth to them and for what reasons, and the community of these reasons lent to their intimacy its last exquisite touch.

I feel as if I could trust my happiness to carry me; as if it had grown out of me like wings.

She was not accustomed to taste the joys of solitude except in company.

... caprice is as ruinous as routine.