The signore...wishes her to begin at the beginning.

I kept waiting for him to lay bare something more than this pointed unobjectionableness, but all that rose to the surface was more surface

How can one say, 'No, this isn't a part of life,' since it always is? The contaminant of sex, the redeeming corruption that de-idealizes the species and keeps us everlastingly mindful of the matter we are.

I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again.

Never in his life had occasion to ask himself, "Why are things the way they are?" Why should he bother, when the way they were was always perfect? Why are things the way they are? The question to which there is no answer, and up till then he was so blessed he didn't even know the question existed.

You can no more make someone tell the truth than you can force someone to love you.

You have a conscience, and a conscience is a valuable attribute, but not if it begins to make you think you were to blame for what is far beyond the scope of your responsibility.