“The world is so overgrown that it can't lift its own fingers, and I was planning to be such an important finger-”

“These lights, this brightness, these clusters of human hope, of wild desire—I shall take these lights in my fingers. I shall make them bright, and whether they shine or not, it is in these fingers that they shall succeed or fail.”

“I had taken two finger-bowls of champagne, and the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant, elemental, and profound.”

“I was enjoying myself now. I had taken two finger bowls of champagne and the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant, elemental and profound.”

“I have lived so long within the circle of this book and with these characters that often it seems to me that the real world does not exist but that only these characters exist, and however pretentious that remark sounds... it is an absolute fact-- so much so that their glees and woes are just exactly as important to me as what happens in life.”

“His voice, with some faint Irish melody running through it, wooed the world, yet she felt the layer of hardness in him, of self-control and of self-discipline, her own virtues. Oh, she chose him, and Nicole, lifting her head saw her choose him, heard a little sigh at the fact that he was already possessed.”

“He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American - that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games.”