he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass.

There's no beauty without poignancy and there's no poignancy without the feeling that it's going, men, names, books, houses--bound for dust--mortal--

Her body calculated to a millimeter to suggest a bud yet guarantee a flower.

Long afterward Amory thought of sophomore spring as the happiest time of his life. His ideas were in tune with life as he found it; he wanted no more than to drift and dream and enjoy a dozen new-found friendships through the April afternoons.

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

Nobody ever became a writer just by wanting to be one.

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