Don't they always go from bad to worse? There's no turning back--your old self rejects you, and shuts you out. ~Lilly Bart

...every literature, in its main lines, reflects the chief characteristics of the people for whom, and about whom, it is written.

Most timidities have such secret compensations and Miss Bart was discerning enough to know that the inner vanity is generally in proportion to the outer self depreciation.

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.

The visible world is a daily miracle for those who have eyes and ears; and I still warm hands thankfully at the old fire, though every year it is fed with the dry wood of more old memories.

Wherein lies a poet's claim to originality? That he invents his incidents? No. That he was present when his episodes had their birth? No. That he was first to repeat them? No. None of these things has any value. He confers on them their only originality that has any value, and that is his way of telling them." Mark Twain "...every literature, in its main lines, reflects the chief characteristics of the people for whom, and about whom, it is written.

Her vivid smile was like a light held up to dazzle me.