I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.

Everything that begins, begins with blood.

Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.

You're the only girl I've seen for a long time that actually did look like something blooming.

I had a strong sudden instinct that I must be alone. I didn’t want to see any people at all. I had seen so many people all my life -- I was an average mixer, but more than average in a tendency to identify myself, my ideas, my destiny, with those of all classes that came in contact with. I was always saving or being saved -- in a single morning I would go through the emotions ascribable to Wellington at Waterloo. I lived in a world of inscrutable hostiles and inalienable friends and supporters.

He was resentful against all those in authority over him, and this, combined with a lazy indifference toward his work, exasperated every master in school. He grew discouraged and imagined himself a pariah; took to sulking in corners and reading after lights. With a dread of being alone he attached a few friends, but since they were not among the elite of the school, he used them simply as mirrors of himself, audiences before which he might do that posing absolutely essential to him. He was unbearably lonely, desperately unhappy.

Rosemary felt that this swim would become the typical one of her life, the one that would always pop up in her memory at the mention of swimming.