I was just a screw or cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else.

Inkstands and tea-cups are never as full as when one upsets them.

To your generation, I must represent the literary equivalent of tufted furniture and gas chandeliers.

I discovered early that crying makes my nose red, and the knowledge has helped me through several painful episodes.

A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue.

... how I understand that love of living, of being in this wonderful, astounding world even if one can look at it only through theprison bars of illness and suffering! Plus je vois, the more I am thrilled by the spectacle.

Archer was too intelligent to think that a young woman like Ellen Olenska would necessarily recoil from everything that reminded her of her past. She might believe herself wholly in revolt against it; but what had charmed her in it would still charm her even though it were against her will.