“When the last moonshiner buys his radio,And the last, lost, wild-rabbit of a girlIs civilized with a mail-order dress,Something will pass that was AmericanAnd all the movies will not bring it back.”

“it would be lovely to sleep in a wild cherry-tree all white with bloom in the moonshine”

“Humanity was a passing notion to him; something he liked to try on for size and model in the dressing room, but never actually felt compelled to buy.”

“When was the last time anyone in these parts had been attacked by a bear or a mountain lion? It was possible, but not probable, right? Maybe it was something harmless. A deer or a stray cow. Or a really big rabbit.”

“Just before it was dark, as they passed a great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love with something under a yellow blanket, his small line was taken by a dolphin. He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true gold in the last of the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air.”

“For years afterward when Amory thought of Eleanor he seemed still to hear the wind sobbing around him and sending little chills into the places beside his heart. The night when they rode up the cold slope and watched the cold moon float through the clouds, he lost a further part of him that nothing could restore; and when he lost it he lost also the power of regretting it. Eleanor was, say, the last time that evil crept close to Amory under the mask of beauty, the last weird mystery that held him with wild fascination and pounded his soul to flakes.”