It was a broiling afternoon of mid-August in Brinoe and everybody who was anybody had long ago quit its burning pavements and chilly palaces for the mountains or the sea.

...she had come long ago to understand that loneliness was the curse of those who were free, even of all those who rose a little above the level of ordinary humanity.

Houses, like people, have personalities, and, like the personalities of people, they are partly molded by all that has happened to them.

As soils are depleted, human health, vitality and intelligence go with them.

Bread is the king of the table and all else is merely the court that surrounds the king. The countries are the soup, the meat, the vegetables, the salad, but bread is king.

She had turned her back upon them all and no awful fate had overtaken her; instead, she had taken a firm hold upon life and made of it a fine, even glittering, success; and this is a thing which is not easily forgiven.

It was a broiling afternoon of mid-August in Brinoe and everybody who was anybody had long ago quit its burning pavements and chilly palaces for the mountains or the sea.