The water reached up for her, pulled her down tenderly out of the heat, seeped in her hair and ran into the corners of her body. She turned round and round in it, embracing it, wallowing in it.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

You really ought to read more books - you know, those things that look like blocks but come apart on one side.

Most people think everybody feels about them much more violently than they actually do; they think other people's opinions of them swing through great arcs of approval or disapproval.

he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass.

Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.

She was overstrained with grief and loneliness: almost any shoulder would have done as well.