The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

Apart from the pleasure of looking at her and listening to her-of enjoying in her what others less discriminatingly but as liberally appreciated-he had the sense, between himself and her, of a kind of free-masonry of precocious tolerance and irony. They had both, in early youth, taken the measure of the world they happened to live in: they knew just what it was worth to them and for what reasons, and the community of these reasons lent to their intimacy its last exquisite touch.

In every heart there should be one grief that is like a well in the desert.

The very good people didn't convince me; I felt they'd never been tempted. But you knew; you understood; you had felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands — and yet you hated the things it asks of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference.

The taste of the usual was like cinders in his mouth, and there were moments when he felt as if he were being buried alive under his future.

If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.

Only the fact that we are unaware how well our nearest know us enables us to live with them.