“As it somehow always manages before the winter solstice, but never after, the early darkness was cheerful and promising, even for those who had nothing.”

“As time passed from solstice to mild solstice in those occluded zones of my early childhood, I played beneath the distracted majesty of my mother's blue-eyed gaze. With her eyes on me I felt as if I were being studied by flowers.”

“there was a pessimism in his soul, a darkness in his outlook, that always left her somehow more aware of hard edges than she had been before.”

“The book worm, the foreign-looking one with the dark, close set eyes an the Roman nose, who had never been sought after or cherished; who had always been left alone, to read.”

“But anybody who's never had delirium tremens even in their early stages may not understand that it's not so much a physical pain but a mental anguish indescribable to those ignorant people who dont drink and accuse drinkers of irresponsibility.”

“Let those love now, who never lov'd before, / Let those who always lov'd, now love the more.”