There is a moment—Oh, just before the first kiss, a whispered word—something that makes it worth while.

If I knew words enough, I could write the longest love letter in the world and never get tired

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.

Well, I can't describe her exactly-except to say that she was beautiful. She was-tremendously alive.

Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmoniously above the willow. May came too soon, and suddenly unable to bear walls, he wandered the campus at all hours through starlight and rain.

Well, let it pass, he thought; April is over, April is over. There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice. --The Sensible Thing

I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade.