From the ruins, lonely and inexplicable as the sphinx, rose the Empire State Building.

I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.

He wanted to appear suddenly to her in novel and heroic colors. He wanted to stir her from that casualness she showed toward everything except herself.

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

I began to realize that for two years my life had been a drawing on resources that I did not possess, that I had been mortgaging myself physically and spiritually up to the hilt.

The notion of sitting down and conjuring up, not only words in which to clothe thoughts but thoughts worthy of being clothed--the whole thing was absurdly beyond his desires.

Character is plot, plot is character.