“I had traded the fight against love for the fight against loneliness, the fight against life for the fight against death.”

“And so we beat on, books against the critics, borne back ceaslessly into rewrites.”

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

“Most of us are content to exist and breed and fight for the right to do both, and the dominant idea, the foredoomed attest to control one's destiny, is reserved for the fortunate or unfortunate few.”

“I'm a romantic; a sentimental person thinks things will last, a romantic person hopes against hope that they won't.”

“They had never been closer in their month of love, nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when she brushed silent lips against his coat's shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep.”

“Experience is not worth the getting. It's not a thing that happens pleasantly to a passive you--it's a wall that an active you runs up against.”