“The young habitually mistake lust for love, they're infested with idealism of all kinds.”

“You should not be sad," he said, gazing at me with his melancholy, leathery walrus eyes. "It must be the love. But you are young and pretty, you will have time to be sad later." The French are connoisseurs of sadness, they know all the kinds. This is why they have bidets. "It is criminal, the love, " he said, patting my shoulder. "But none is worse."—”

“Today she wears her habitual expression of strained anxiety; she smells of violets.”

“Second-hand American was spreading over him in patches, like mange or lichen. He was infested, garbled, and I couldn't help him: it would take such time to heal, unearth him, scrape down to where he was true.”

“The stains on the mattress. Like dried flower petals. Not recent. Old love; there's no other kind of love in this room now.”

“How shrunk, how dwindled, in our timesCreation's mighty seed -For Man has broke the FellowshipWith murder, lust, and greed.”

“The French are connoisseurs of sadness, they know all kinds. This is why they have bidets.”