It has long been a tradition among novel writers that a book must end by everybody getting just what they wanted, or if the conventional happy ending was impossible, then it must be a tragedy in which one or both should die. In real life very few of us get what we want, our tragedies don't kill us, but we go on living them year after year, carrying them with us like a scar on an old wound.

If there were no girls like them in the world, there would be no poetry

There was a new kind of strength in the gravity of her face, and her colors still gave her that look of deep-seated health and ardor.

Personal life becomes paler as the imaginative life becomes richer.

An artist's saddest secrets are those that have to do with his artistry.

Freedom so often means that one isn't needed anywhere.

Sometimes," I ventured, "it doesn't occur to boys that their mother was ever young and pretty. . . I couldn't stand it if you boys were inconsiderate, or thought of her as if she were just somebody who looked after you. You see I was very much in love with your mother once, and I know there's nobody like her.