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.

Her fine high forehead sloped gently up to where her hair, bordering it like an armorial shield, burst into lovelocks and waves and curlicues of ash blonde and gold. Her eyes were bright, big, clear, wet and shining, the colour of her cheeks was real, breaking close to the surface from the strong young pump of her heart. Her body hovered delicately on the last edge of childhood -- she was almost eighteen, nearly complete, but the dew was still on her.

I want you to take a red-hot bath as hot as you can bear it, and just relax your nerves. You can read in the tub if you wish.

All she wanted was to be a little girl, to be efficiently taken care of by some yielding yet superior power, stupider and steadier than herself. It seemed that the only lover she had ever wanted was a lover in a dream

I’m not sure what I’ll do, but— well, I want to go places and see people. I want my mind to grow. I want to live where things happen on a big scale.

There was a kindliness about intoxication - there was that indescribable gloss and glamour it gave, like the memories of ephemeral and faded evenings.

When people are taken out of their depths they lose their heads, no matter how charming a bluff they may put up.