The younger one looked to be completely useless.

I wonder if people always choose what will make them unhappy.

But there are other words for privacy and independence. They are isolation and loneliness.

I'll be your minister--" "Of the exchequer? You'd rob me blind." "I would never steal from you," he'd said hotly. "Oh? Where is my tourmaline necklace? Where are my missing earrings?" "That necklace was hideous. It was the only way to keep you from wearing it." "My earrings?" "What earrings?

I think a good book is a good book forever. I don't think they get less good because times change.

She's like a prisoner inside stone walls, and every day the walls get a little thicker, the doorways a little narrower.

Muse of poetry, come to his aid, I thought. Could the man produce one more metaphor of husbandry? He seemed to be trying. "Green wood," I suggested, but even he sensed that there was something unfortunate about a metaphor for a king in which you dry out your royalty before you set fire to it.