He saw in happiness the seeds of independence, and in independence the seeds of revolt.

It was not certain what significance the ceremony held... but the formality was no less sacred for it being unintelligible

Cold love’s the loveliest love of all. So clear, so crisp, so empty. In short, so civilized.

In the presence of real tragedy you feel neither pain nor joy nor hatred, only a sense of enormous space and time suspended, the great doors open to black eternity, the rising across the terrible field of that last enormous, unanswerable question.

To live at all is miracle enough.

I was brooding, boy. Than which there is no richer pastime. It muffles one with rotting plumes. It gives forth sullen music. It is the smell of home.

Yet not with all of me am I in love. Too much of my own quietness is with me.