This selfishness is not only part of me. It is the most living part.It is somehow transcending rather than by avoiding that selfishness that I can bring poise and balance into my life.

You don’t know what a trial it is to be —like me. I've got to keep my face like steel in the street to keep men from winking at me.

my imagination persisted in sticking horrors into the dark- so I stuck my imagination into the dark instead, and let it look out at me.

I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.

Was it the infinite sadness of her eyes that drew him or the mirror of himself that he found in the gorgeous clarity of her mind?

It was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being.

The unwelcome November rain had perversely stolen the day's last hour and pawned it with that ancient fence, the night.

You know I'm old in some ways-in others-well, I'm just a little girl. I like sunshine and pretty things and cheerfulness-and I dread responsibility.

Beauty and love pass, I know... Oh, there's sadness, too. I suppose all great happiness is a little sad. Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses-

Amory thought how it was only the past that seemed strange and unbelievable.

I'm not sentimental--I'm as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last--the romanticperson has a desperate confidence that they won't.

What is essence of knowledge, if it does not change the way we act?

Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one's own actions or lack of action.

I didn't have the time to literally write and draw the strip at the same time.

When things are tough, you get tougher.

Just before she died she asked, What is the answer? No answer came. She laughed and said, In that case, what is the question? Then she died.

There is no prayer or good work so great, so pleasing to God, so useful to us as the Mass.

If you do a good act, it cancels the effects of your evil deeds. If one prays, takes the Name of God and thinks of Him, the effects of evil are cancelled.

The truth is that any good modern rifle is good enough. The determining factor is the man behind the gun.

To take no account of oneself, but always to think well and highly of others is the highest wisdom and perfection.

Only a fool does not look to explain his mistakes.