“They damned the books I read and the things I thought by calling them immoral; later the fashion changed, and they damned things by calling them ‘clever.”

“Life is so damned hard, so damned hard... It just hurts people and hurts people, until finally it hurts them so that they can't be hurt ever any more. That's the last and worst thing it does.”

“They were both overwhelmed by the sudden flatness that comes over American travellers in quiet foreign places. No stimuli worked upon them, no voices called them from without, no fragments of their own thoughts came suddenly from the minds of others.”

“I simply state that I'm a product of a versatile mind in a restless generation-with every reason to throw my mind and pen in with the radicals. Even if, deep in my heart, I thought we were all blind atoms in a world as limited as a stroke of a pendulum, I and my sort would struggle against tradition; try, at least, to displace old cants with new ones. I've thought I was right about life at various times, but faith is difficult. One thing I know. If living isn't seeking for the grail it may be a damned amusing game.”

“I don't give a damn about you now, but it was a new experience for me and I felt a little dizzy for a while.”

“I am a woman and my business is to hold things together.My business is to tear them apart.”

“sometimes i wish i'd been an englishman; american life is so damned dumb and stupid and healthy”