A big man has no time really to do anything but just sit and be big.

He's so dumb he doesn't know he's alive.

Tired, tired with nothing, tired with everything, tired with the world’s weight he had never chosen to bear.

Never confuse activity with action.

sometimes i wish i'd been an englishman; american life is so damned dumb and stupid and healthy

When Eleanor's arm touched his he felt his hands grow cold with deadly fear lest he should lose the shadow brush with which his imagination was painting wonders of her. He watched her from the corners of his eyes as ever he did when he walked with her-- she was a feast and a folly and he wished it had been his destiny to sit forever on a haystack and see life through her green eyes.

Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure and the memory so possessed him that for the moment there was nothing to do but to pretend.