Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work-- the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside-- the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don't show their effect all at once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within-that you don't feel until it's too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again.

His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.

One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.

I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

Shakespeare--whetting, frustrating, surprising and gratifying.

No one person in the world is necessary to you or to me.