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.

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

It was too late - everything was too late. For years now he had dreamed the world away, basing his decisions upon emotions unstable as water.

Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves - that's the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives - experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time anyone else has been so caught up and so pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before. Then we learn our trade, well or less well, and we tell our two or three stories - each time in a new disguise - maybe ten times, maybe a hundred, as long as people will listen.

Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.

An unread book is just a block of paper.

I was in love with a whirlwind, so when the girl threw me over, I went home and finished my novel.