The American landscape has no foreground and the American mind no background.

Overhead hung a summer sky furrowed with the rush of rockets; and from the east a late moon, pushing up beyond the lofty bend of the coast, sent across the bay a shaft of brightness which paled to ashes in the red glitter of the illuminated boats.

And I wonder, among all the tangles of this mortal coil, which one contains tighter knots to undo, & consequently suggests more tugging, & pain, & diversified elements of misery, than the marriage tie.

I was never allowed to read the popular American children's books of my day because, as my mother said, the children spoke bad English without the author's knowing it.

He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate lifetime.

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

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