First, he realized that the sea was blue and that there was an enormous quantity of it, and that it roared and roared-really all the banalities about the ocean that one could realize, but if any one had told him then that these things were banalities, he would have gaped in wonder.

It isn't given to us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world. They will not be cured by our most efficacious drugs or slain with our sharpest swords.

I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.

Once I thought that Lake Forest was the most glamorous place in the world. Maybe it was.

I carry the place around the world in my heart but sometimes I try to shake it off in my dreams

When you're older you'll know what people who love suffer. The agony. It's better to be cold and young than to love. It's happened to me before but never like this - so accidental - just when everything was going well.

If you try to create a type, you may end with nothing. If you do a good job of creating an individual, you may succeed at creating a type.