No one could say how long that life would last. Whatever has form can disappear in an instant.

A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do, but what he should do.

Why?" she screamed. "Are you crazy? You know the English subjunctive, you understand trigonometry, you can read Marx, and you don't know the answer to something as simple as that? Why do you even have to ask? Why do you have to make a girl SAY something like this? I like you more than I like him, that's all. I wish I had fallen in love with somebody a little more handsome, of course. But I didn't. I fell in love with you!

The things she most wanted to tell him would lose their meaning the moment she put them into words.

I can be hurt, you know. I can get as exhausted as anybody else. I can feel so bad I want to cry, too.

Good style happens in one of two ways: the writer either has an inborn talent or is willing to work herself to death to get it.

It's not right for one friend to do all the giving and the other to do all the taking: that's not real friendship.