“Look back on Time, with kindly eyes -He doubtless did his best -How softly sinks that trembling sunIn Human Nature's West -”

“He was tender with her. He wiped her eyelids with his handkerchief, not noticing how soiled it was. It was stained with ink, crumpled, stuck together. Her lids were large and tender and the handkerchief was stiff, not nearly soft enough. He moistened a corner in his mouth. He was painfully aware of the private softness of her skin, of how the eyes trembled beneath their coverings. He dried the tears with an affection, a particularity, that had never been exercised before. It was a demonstration of 'nature.' He was a birth-wet foal rising to his feet.”

“...As marriage was woman's business, unmarried women, though doubtless unfortunate, must simply be considered as business failures: harsh, doubtless, but in tune with the sink-or-swim capitalist times.”

“With one glance he had got himself trapped in the brown fundament of her eyes, he was in danger of sinking, as if into a soft, brown swamp, and he had to close his own eyes for a second to get out of it..”

“Look natural, that is the best way. Flowers, plants, and animals are all content with how they look—satisfied with nature's endowment. Only human beings are eager to change what nature has given them.”

“He leaned down and kissed my forehead. The soft melody of his lips was calming. I closed my eyes. I could smell his human skin, his human breath, his human hair, and for the first time, I would give anything to be human too.”