The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

You're not sorry to go, of course. With people like us our home is where we are not... No one person in the world is necessary to you or to me.

When Eleanor's arm touched his he felt his hands grow cold with deadly fear lest he should lose the shadow brush with which his imagination was painting wonders of her. He watched her from the corners of his eyes as ever he did when he walked with her-- she was a feast and a folly and he wished it had been his destiny to sit forever on a haystack and see life through her green eyes.

I guess I'm the Black Death,' he said slowly. 'I don't seem to bring people happiness any more.

Often a man can play the helpless child in front of a woman, but he can almost never bring it off when he feels most like a helpless child.

It was strange to have no self-to be like a little boy left alone in a big house, who knew that now he could do anything he wanted to do, but found that there was nothing that he wanted to do.

The mind of a little child is fascinating, for it looks on old things with new eyes-but at about twelve this changes. The adolescent offers nothing, can do nothing, say nothing that the adult cannot do better.