She was incomprehensible, for, in her, soul and spirit were one - the beauty of her body was the essence of her soul. She was that unity sought for by philosophers through many centuries. In this outdoor waiting room of winds and stars she had been sitting for a hundred years, at peace in the contemplation of herself.

Baltimore is warm but pleasant... I belong here, where everything is civilized and gay and rotted and polite.

in crowded rooms they would form words with their lips for each other's eyes

I don't think he was ever happy unless someone was in love with him, responding to him like filings to a magnet, helping him to explain himself, promising him something. What it was I do not know. Perhaps they promised that there would always be women in the world who would spend their brightest, freshest, rarest hours to nurse and protect that superiority he cherished in his heart.

I just couldn't make the grade as a hack-that, like everything else, requires a certain practiced excellence.

You really ought to read more books - you know, those things that look like blocks but come apart on one side.

The reason one writes isn't the fact he wants to say something. He writes because he has something to say.