“It seems, after all that there are no nonpeculiar people.”

“I am a phoenix who runs after arsonists.”

“I had yet to find out how little people want you to succeed in an extraordinary project, and what comfort some have that the negligible is upheld and all other greater efforts falls on its face.”

“It never seems to occur to such "criminals" that to behave with decency to another human being might also be "gratuitous.”

“The old continued to have one resurgence of foolishness after another, until the organism gave out altogether.”

“Is love supposed to ruin you? It seems to me you shouldn't destroy yourself out of life for purposes of love--or what good is it?”

“But Mimi- her tenderness didn't have an easy visibility. You wondered what it would be, and after what terrible manifestations it would appear.”