“My aunt and overprivileged cousin only recognize two states of being: glitter and grunge. And if you weren’t glitter, well, that only left one other option.”

“Love from one being to another can only be that two solitudes come nearer, recognize and protect and comfort each other. ”

“There are only two living American authors fully deserving of the Nobel Prize. One is Lewis Mumford. The other is Wallace Stegner, whose novels and essays provide us a comprehensive portrait of industrial society in all its glittering corruption and radiant evil.”

“All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others.”

“There is only darkness, starless and complete. The waves glitter like a million dull knives.”

“The glitter of the great world, you know, is only so much froth and spume: you may look in vain for happiness there.”