It's unbecoming," she agreed. "A perfect word for my new life. Unbecoming. I who have always been unbecoming am becoming un.

There were people everywhere but no one was mine, and I was no one's.

His avenging angel had come to call him home. A suicide was waiting for him back in his own world, and by now he ought to have learned enough to get through it successfully.

Everyone dies. It's a question of where and how, that's all.

Those times are over and gone, and good riddance to them, too. We were hopelessly high-spirited. Now we're the tick-waisted generation, dragging along our children behind us and carrying our parents on our backs. And we're in charge, while the figures who used to command our respect are wasting away.

If one could drown in the grass, thought Elphie, that might be the best way to die.

...perhaps charity is the kind of beauty that we comprehend the best because we miss it the most.