“I wanted her to stretch her mind and her self-confidence, but I also wanted her to play with friends, read books, listen to music and glaze over with the pleasant boredom of a long afternoon with no place to be and nothing to do.”

“I don't want to point out her flaws, but if I see her going on a self-destructive path, isn't it up to me as her friend to stop her?”

“Listening to the music while stretching her body close to its limit, she was able to attain a mysterious calm. She was simultaneously the torturer and the tortured, the forcer and the forced. This sense of inner-directed self-sufficiency was what she wanted most of all. It gave her deep solace.”

“I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”

“Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”

“I want to kiss her without counting the seconds. I want to hold her so long that I get to know her skin. I want, I want, I want.”