“Intentions, good or bad, are not enough. There's luck or fate or something else that takes over...”

“Intention, good or bad, is not enough.”

“It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with Gods or the gods.”

“Once you have lived in New York and made it your home, no place else is good enough”

“Do you take pride in your hurt?' Samuel asked. 'Does it make you seem large and tragic? . . . Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience . . . there's all that fallow land, and here beside me is all that fallow man. It seems a waste. And I have a bad feeling about waste because I could never afford it. Is it a good feeling to let your life lie fallow?”

“There's something desirable about anything you're used to as opposed to something you're not.”

“Someone's got to do these things,' he said sullenly. 'Or else fate would not ever get nose-thumbed and mankind would still be clinging to the top branches of a tree.”