When I see a beautiful shell like that I can't help feeling a regret about what's inside it.

I think they're very attractive,' Abe agreed. 'I just don't think they're attractive, that's all.

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

Happiness is the relief after extreme tension

Most affectations conceal something eventually, even though they don't in the beginning.

New York had all the iridescence of the beginning of the world.

This is a valley of ashes--a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.