The mouth was wide open and ripped at the corners, as though she had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long.

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.

Rosemary felt that this swim would become the typical one of her life, the one that would always pop up in her memory at the mention of swimming.

Beautiful things grow to a certain height and then they fail and fade off, breathing out memories as they decay. And just as any period decays in our minds, the things of that period should decay too, and in that way they're preserved for a while in the few hearts like mine that react to them. Trying to preserve a century by keeping its relics up to date is like keeping a dying man alive by stimulants.

I love this simply because it's cute, and I guess it's a sign of the times in many respect. It's pretty much saying you complete me, only in the sweetest way possible.

So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight - watching over nothing.

It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.