the growth of intimacy is like that. First one gives off his best picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humour. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and a third – before long the best lines cancel out – and the secret is exposed at last; the planes of the pictures have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a picture. We must be satisfied with hoping that such fatuous accounts of ourselves as we make to our wives and children and business associates are accepted as true

Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses

Actually that’s my secret — I can’t even talk about you to anybody because I don’t want any more people to know how wonderful you are.

I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it, on the inside.

What do you think of that? It’s stopped raining." I’m glad Jay." Her throat, full of aching, grieving beauty, told only of her unexpected joy.

He was going to live in New York, and be known at every restaurant and café, wearing a dress suit from early evening to early morning, sleeping away the dull hours of the forenoon.

She was overstrained with grief and loneliness: almost any shoulder would have done as well.