I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade.

Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revery of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.

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.

An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards.

A lot of young girls together is a romantic secret thing like the first sight of wild ducks at dawn.

Amory thought how it was only the past that seemed strange and unbelievable.

I am too much a moralist at heart, and really want to preach at people in some acceptable form, rather than entertain them.