For there was a conspiracy of dullness in the world, a universal plan to shut out the resurgences of spirit which might interfere with clockwork. Better to keep your elevation unseen until it is higher than strangers' hands can reach to pull you down to their level.

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.

I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.

Just another four-letter word.

How long does it have to go on? This punishment? Haven't I done time enough, haven't I served my term? can't I apply for a-pardon?

Only some radical change can divert the downward course of my spirit, some startling new place or people to arrest the drift, the drag.

He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen, I made the discovery - love. All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding on something that had always been half in shadow, that's how it struck the world for me. But I was unlucky. Deluded.