pacifists lead a lonely life. Not even gathering together can take the place of that vast, warm sun of approval that is shed on motherhood, on law-abiding, on killing, and on making money. Someday will we come into our own? Well, motherhood may move into the shade. Law-abiding is going through a trauma. But killing and making money are good for a long, long time.

The woods seemed all answer and healing and more than enough to live for.

... love and fear increase together with a precision almost mathematical: the greater the love is then the greater the fear is.

in mad people fear goes on constantly, night and day, wearing one ditch in the mind that all thoughts must travel in.

Freedom is no guarantee of anything. It is only defined today by what it is not. What it is takes forms strange and of infinite variety - bizarre as in a masquerade.

The dead elm leaves hung like folded bats.

Everything drops away, comes to be unimportant in the dark. It's like sleep almost. A freedom from self, from ugliness.