The ability to hold two competing thoughts in one's mind and still be able to function is the mark of a superior mind

...I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes.

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

They talked aimlessly back and forth, each speaking for the other.

He's sensitive and I don't want him to break his heart over somebody who doesn't care about him.

Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work-- the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside-- the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don't show their effect all at once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within-that you don't feel until it's too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again.

Never befuddle a solitary thrashing with a last annihilation.