“It was an exciting community, where we lived in Washington. The basic feeling—and I don’t think this is just nostalgia—was one of excitement, of achievement, of happiness. Life was important, life was significant.”

“feeling - probably for the first time in my life - the fear and excitement of living in a place where you never know what's going to happen or when.”

“She looked at Bernard with an expression of rapture, but of rapture in which there was no trace of agitation or excitement—for to be excited is still to be unsatisfied. Hers was the calm ecstasy of achieved consummation, the peace, not of mere vacant satiety and nothingness, but of balanced life, of energies at rest and in equilibrium. A rich and living peace.”

“Many people think excitement is happiness.... But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.”

“And yet, the only exciting life is the imaginary one.”

“I think I’m greedy, but I’m not greedy for money – I think that can be a burden – I’m greedy for an exciting life. I want it to be exciting all the time, and I get it, actually. On the other hand, I can find excitement, I admit, in raindrops falling on a puddle and a lot of people wouldn’t. I intend to have it exciting until the day I fall over.”