Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many and not the standard of just one man.

Quiet is here and all in me. ("Dress of White Silk")

To get married and have a family, is to grow up and mature. It's the only way. You can read philosophy books for a hundred years, but if you don't get married and have a family you will never get it. They soften you and shape you, mature you. Absolutely.

As her analyst had told her: the deeper buried the distress, the further into the body it went. The digestive system was about as far as it could go to hide.

A man could get used to anything if he had to.

But it was hard to keep his hands still. He could almost feel them twitching emphatically with his strong desire to reach out and stroke the dog's head. He had such a terrible yearning to love something again, and the dog was such a beautiful ugly dog.

And, before science had caught up with the legend, the legend had swallowed science and everything.