Suddenly the full long wail of a ship's horn surged through the open window and flooded the dim room—a cry of boundless, dark, demanding grief; pitch-black and glabrous as a whale's back and burdened with all the passions of the tides, the memory of voyages beyond counting, the joys, the humiliations: the sea was screaming.

The cynicism that regards hero worship as comical is always shadowed by a sense of physical inferiority

His emotion evident in the glitter of his eyes.

What I wanted was to die among strangers, untroubled, beneath a cloudless sky. And yet my desire differed from the sentiments of that ancient Greek who wanted to die under the brilliant sun. What I wanted was some natural, spontaneous suicide. I wanted a death like that of a fox, not yet well versed in cunning, that walks carelessly along a mountain path and is shot by a hunter because of its own stupidity.

True beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs, and finally destroys.

Again and again, the cicada's untiring cry pierced the sultry summer air like a needle at work on thick cotton cloth.

When silence is prolonged over a certain period of time, it takes on new meaning.