Intelligence is a mere instrument of circumstances.

Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy.

I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.

Exploration was for those with a measure of peasant blood, those with big thighs and thick ankles who could take punishment as they took bread and salt, on every inch of flesh and spirit.

the cracked plate has to be retained in the pantry, has to be kept in service as a household necessity. It can never be warmed on the stove nor shuffled with the other plates in the dishpan; it will not be brought out for company but it will do to hold crackers late at night or to go into the ice-box with the left overs.

I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.

The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.