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

Poetry is either something that lives like fire inside you

The transition from libertine to prig was so complete.

He wanted to care, and he could not care. For he had gone away and he could never go back anymore. The gates were closed, the sun was down, and there was no beauty left but the gray beauty of steel that withstands all time. Even the grief he could have borne was left behind in the country of youth, of illusion, of the richness of life, where his winter dreams had flourished.

He lifted his arms to the crystaline, radiant sky. "I know myself," he cried, "but that is all.

The world is always curious, and people become valuable merely for their inaccessibility

There used to be two kinds of kisses: First when girls were kissed and deserted; second, when they were engaged. Now there's a third kind, where the man is kissed and deserted. If Mr. Jones of the nineties bragged he'd kissed a girl, everyone knew he was through with her. If Mr. Jones of 1919 brags the same, everyone knows it's because he can't kiss her any more. Given a decent start any girl can beat a man nowadays.