Raids are slightly constipating.

the process of reading is reciprocal; the book is no more than a formula, to be furnished out with images out of the reader's mind.

Bring all your intelligence to bear on your beginning.

we can surmount the anger we feel. To find oneself like a young tree inside a tomb is to discover the power to crack the tomb and grow up to any height.

A Bowen, in the first place, made Bowen's Court. Since then, with a rather alarming sureness, Bowen's Court has made all the succeeding Bowens.

Short of a small range of physical acts-a fight, murder, lovemaking-dialogue is the most vigorous and visible inter-action of which characters in a novel are capable. Speech is what characters do to each other.

The paradox of romantic love -- that what one possesses, one can no longer desire -- was at work.