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

One can remain alive ... if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity interested in big things and happy in small ways.

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.

Their long years together had shown him that it did not so much matter if marriage was a dull duty, as long as it kept the dignity of duty: lapsing from that, it became a mere battle of ugly appetites.

And all the while, I suppose," he thought, "real people were living somewhere, and real things happening to them.

She wondered if, when human souls try to get too near each other, they do not inevitably become mere blurs to each other's vision.