Eighteen might look at thirty-four through a rising mist of adolescence, but twenty-two would see thirty-eight with discerning clarity.

Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

A sense of responsibility would spoil her. She's too pretty.

...their eyes are full of kindness as each feels the full effect of novelty after a short separation. They are drawing a relaxation from each other's presence, a new serenity.

At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others -- poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner -- young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.

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