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.

No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity.

What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath.

She had no tolerance for scenes which were not of her own making.

Ah, the poverty, the miserable poverty, of any love that lies outside of marriage, of any love that is not a living together, a sharing of all!

It is almost as stupid to let your clothes betray that you know you are ugly as to have them proclaim that you think you are beautiful.

... there are spines to which the immobility of worship is not a strain.