I have lived hard and ruined the essential innocence [sic] in myself that could make it that possible [sic], and the fact that I have abused liquor is something to be paid for with suffering and death perhaps but not renunciation.

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

Amory wondered how people could fail to notice that he was a boy marked for glory, and when faces of the throng turned toward him and ambiguous eyes stared into his, he assumed the most romantic of expressions and walked on the air cushions that lie on the asphalts of fourteen.

Only remember west of the Mississippi it's a little more look, see, act. A little less rationalize, comment, talk.

The cleverly expressed opposite of any generally accepted idea is worth a fortune to somebody.

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.

Of the things they possessed in common, greatest of all was their almost uncanny pull at each others hearts.