“Any event once it has occurred can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.”

“An artist has been defined as a neurotic who continually cures himself with his art.”

“I have produced no children of my own and my husband is dead," she replied, an acid tone in her voice. "Thus I am more to be pitied than revered. I am expected to give up the shop to my nephew, who will then be able to afford to bring a very good wife from Pakistan. In exchange, I will be given houseroom and no doubt, the honor of taking care of several small children of other family members."The Major was silent. He was at once appalled and also reluctant to hear any more. This was why people usually talked about the weather.”

“Such an awful fragility of love he thought that plans are made and broken and remade in these gaps between rational behavior.”

“He had never imagined so clearly the consequences of mailing a letter—the impossibility of retrieving it from the iron mouth of the box; the inevitability if its steady progress through the postal system; the passing from bag to bag and postman to postman until a lone man in a van pulls up to the door and pushes a small pile through the letterbox. It seemed suddenly horrible that one's words could not be taken back, one's thoughts allowed none of the remediation of speaking face to face.”

“do you really know what it means to be in love with an unsuitable woman?" "Is there any other kind?”

“America wielded her huge power in the world with a brash confidence that reminded him of a toddler who has got hold of a hammer.”