“You see, nothing matters except pleasure - which is the opposite of happiness, its tragic part, I expect.”

“People only see in us the contemptible skirt-fever which rules our actions but completely miss the beauty-hunger underlying it.”

“I am quite alone. I am neither happy nor unhappy; I lie suspended like a hair or a feather in the cloudy mixtures of memory.”

“Love is like trench warfare - you cannot see the enemy, but you know he is there and that it is wiser to keep your head down.”

“In these days Melissa's absorbed and provoking gentleness had all the qualities of a rediscovered youth. Her long uncertain fingers - I used to feel them moving over my face when she thought I slept, as if to memorize the happiness we had shared. In her there was a pliancy, a resilience which was Oriental - a passion to serve. My shabby clothes - the way she picked up a dirty shirt seemed to engulf it with an overflowing solicitude; in the morning I found my razor beautifully cleaned and even the toothpaste laid upon the brush in readiness. Her care for me was a goad, provoking me to give my life some sort of shape and style that might match the simplicity of hers. Of her experiences in love she would never speak, turning from them with a weariness and distaste which suggested that they had been born of necessity rather than desire. She paid me the comlpiment of saying: "For the first time I am not afraid to be light-headed or foolish with a man".”

“I suppose the secret of his success is in his tremendous idleness which almost approaches the supernatural.”

“I don’t believe one reads to escape reality. A person reads to confirm a reality he knows is there, but which he has not experienced.”