I want to just be lazy and I want some of the people around me to be doing things, because that makes me feel comfortable and safe - and I want some of them to be doing nothing at all, because they can be graceful and companionable for me.

Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement. Discouragement has a germ of its own, as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint.

One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.

He had seen me several times, and had intended to call on me long before, but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it.

Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.

You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn't I? I mean it was careless of me to makes such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person I thought it was your secret pride." "I'm thirty," I said. "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor." She didn't answer. Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.

Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can!" He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.