Trollope wrote so many novels and other works that they tend to crowd each other out.

'Ape House' is an ambitious novel in several ways, for which it is to be admired, and it is certainly an easy read, but because Gruen is not quite prepared for the philosophical implications of her subject, it is not as deeply involving emotionally or as interesting thematically as it could be.

it still astounds me, after forty years, that there is no good bread between Chicago and San Francisco.

The fundamental condition of childhood is powerlessness.

Sometimes, a novel is like a train: the first chapter is a comfortable seat in an attractive carriage, and the narrative speeds up. But there are other sorts of trains, and other sorts of novels. They rush by in the dark; passengers framed in the lighted windows are smiling and enjoying themselves.

A horse herd was, in its very essence, the manifestation of the expression 'It's always something.

I had spent years thinking about one thing while I was doing another. I had, in fact, prided myself on being able to do two things at once.