Exploration was for those with a measure of peasant blood, those with big thighs and thick ankles who could take punishment as they took bread and salt, on every inch of flesh and spirit.

He did not understand all he had heard, but from his clandestine glimpse into the privacy of these two, with all the world that his short experience could conceive of at their feet, he had gathered that life for everybody was a struggle, sometimes magnificent from a distance, but always difficult and surprisingly simple and a little sad.

There is a moment—Oh, just before the first kiss, a whispered word—something that makes it worth while.

I want leisure to read—an immense amount.

The sun had gone down behind the tall apartments of the movie stars in the West Fifties, and the unclear voices of children, already gathered like crikets on the grass, rose through the hot twilight.

but they were frightened at his survivant will, once a will to live, now become a will to die.

We want to believe. Young students try to believe in older authors, constituents try to believe in their Congressmen, countries try to believe in their statesmen, but they can't. Too many voices, too much scattered, illogical ill-considered criticism.