“Rather, it was the manshape that held them there, their necks craned, torn between the promise of doom and the disappointment of the ordinary.”

“Rather than adjust his expectations in the face of disappointment, he (Jefferson) tended to bury them deeper inside himself and regard the disjunction between his ideals and the worldly imperfections as the world's problems rather than his own.”

“I don't like ferocious irony but rather the kind that vacillates between disappointment and hope. Okay?”

“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.”

“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you do not try.”

“here was a silence between them for a moment, and she wondered if all women, when in love, were torn between two impulses, a longing to throw modesty and reserve to the winds and confess everything, and an equal determination to conceal the love forever, to be cool, aloof, utterly detached, to die rather than admit a thing so personal, so intimate.”