“Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others.”

“Romantic Love is only an Illusion. A story one makes up in One's Mind about Another Person.”

“Why, if it was an illusion, not praise the catastrophe, whatever it was, that destroyed illusion and put truth in it's place?”

“So the being grows rings; identity becomes robust. What was fiery and furtive like a fling of grain cast into the air and blown hither and thither by wild gusts of life from every quarter is now methodical and orderly and flung with a purpose--so it seems.”

“Illusions are to the soul what atmosphere is to the earth.”

“Punctuality is one of the minor virtues which we do not acquire until later in life.”

“Oh, but she never wanted James to grow a day older or Cam either. These two she would have liked to keep for ever just as the way they were, demons of wickedness, angels of delight, never to see them grow up into long-legged monsters.”