It seemed to Alabama that, reaching her goal, she would drive the devils that had driven her - that, in proving herself, she would achieve that peace which she imagined went only in surety of one’s self - that she would be able, through the medium of the dance, to command her emotions, to summon love or pity or happiness at will, having provided a channel through which they might flow. She drove herself mercilessly, and the summer dragged on.

Life has puffed and blown itself into a summer day, and clouds and spring billow over the heavens as if calendars were a listing of mathematical errors.

Oh, the secret life of man and woman--dreaming how much better we would be than we are if we were somebody else or even ourselves, and feeling that our estate has been unexploited to its fullest.

I love you, even if there isn’t any me, or any love, or even any life. I love you.

Why is there happiness and comfort and excitement where you are and no where else in the world.

Scott-there's nothing in the world I want but you-and your precious love. All the material things are nothing. I'd just hate to live in a sordid, colorless existence-because you'd soon love less-and less-and I'd do anything-anything-to keep your heart for my own-I don't want to live-I want to love first and live incidentally.

I don't want to live. I want to love first, and live incidentally.