i'm in a muddle about a lot of things -- i've just discovered that i've a mind, and i'm starting to read" "read what?" "everything. i have to pick and choose, of course, but mostly things that make me think.

Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply.

He had possessed the arrogance of a tall member of a short race, with no obligation save to be tall.

Grown up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do. It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.

There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams -- not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.

If you spend your life sparing people’s feelings and feeding their vanity, you get so you can’t distinguish what should be respected in them.

He had angered Providence by resisting too many temptations. There was nothing left but heaven, where he would meet only those who, like him, had wasted earth.