“...her self-imposed sentence of unadulterated good-listenership had been fully served.”

“She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty.”

“the sentence im reading is terrific ...”

“My father wrote beautifully,” Esmé interrupted. “I’m saving a number of his letters for posterity.”I said that sounded like a very good idea. I happened to be looking at her enormous-faced, chrono-graphic-looking wristwatch again. I asked if it had belonged to her father.She looked down at her wrist solemnly. “Yes, it did,” she said. “He gave it to me just before Charles and I were evacuated.” Self-consciously, she took her hand off the table, saying, “Purely as a momento, of course.” She guided the conversation in a different direction. “I’d be extremely flattered if you’d write a story exclusively for me sometime. I’m an avid reader.”I told her I certainly would, if I could. I said that I wasn’t terribly prolific.“It doesn’t have to be terribly prolific! Just so that isn’t childish and silly.” She reflected. “I prefer stories about squalor.”“About what?” I said, leaning forward.“Squalor. I’m extremely interested in squalor.”

“For a psychoanalyst to be any good... he'd have to believe that it was through the grace of God that he'd been inspired to study psychoanalysis in the first place.”

“¿Cómo sabe uno lo que va a hacer hasta que llega el momento? Es imposible. Yo creo que sí, pero, ¿cómo puedo saberlo con seguridad?”

“Well. He's a very sensitive boy. He's really never been a terribly good mixer with other boys...'Sensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a goddamn toilet seat.”