“She wasn't speaking to me - in the juvenile, petty sense of the phrase.”
“She wasn't actually speaking to me, she was singing a kind of lullaby of talk. But, eventually, the music stopped. ”
“it's a rare day when she speaks in anything but platitudes--all those exhausted phrases and hand-me-down ideas that cram the dump sites of contemporary wisdom”
“That wasn't English she was speaking: it was the language of diplomacy.”
“I set about seeking a thread, a theme, a style, in the realm of legend. Something that might allow me to give free rein to my juvenile sense of romanticism and the beautiful image.”
“I wasn't much of a petty thief. I wanted the whole world or nothing.”