She smiled, a moving childish smile that was like all the lost youth in the world.

Amory wondered how people could fail to notice that he was a boy marked for glory, and when faces of the throng turned toward him and ambiguous eyes stared into his, he assumed the most romantic of expressions and walked on the air cushions that lie on the asphalts of fourteen.

Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go according to any rules. They're not like aches or wounds, they're more like splits in the skin that won't heal because there's not enough material.

Even when everything seems rotten you can't trust that judgment. It's the sum of all your judgments that counts.

If you try to create a type, you may end with nothing. If you do a good job of creating an individual, you may succeed at creating a type.

Murder your darlings.

Riches have never fascinated me, unless combined with the greatest charm or distinction.