“And it is in New York I have those strangest things of all: human friendships. Not many friendships and not of spent familiarities: for I don't like actual human beings too much around me. But yet ...”

“I Dont Know whether lust is a human coarseness or a human fineness: I dont know why death holds a so sweet lure since it would take away my Body: I dont know that I wouldnt deny my Christ, if I had...”

“One's thoughts are one's most crucial adventures. Seriously and strongly and intently to contemplate doing murder is everyway more exciting, more romantic, more profoundly tragic than the murder done.”

“I am a selfish, conceited, impudent little animal, it is true, but, after all, I am only one grand conglomeration of Wanting”

“I Don’t Know whether lust is a human coarseness or a human fineness: I don’t know why death holds a so sweet lure since it would take away my Body: I don’t know that I wouldn’t deny my Christ, if I...”

“It is of the dubious inevitable side of human nature—like gold teeth and tinned salmon and bastard lacy valentines”

“A human being in this aged nation of ours is a very wonderful whole, the slow creation of long interchanging influences; and charm is a result of two such wholes, the one loving and the one loved.”

“The more one judges, the less one loves.”

“[N]one of us drinks the chalice of our existence to the last drop. None of us is fully obedient. Each of us falls short of the human nature entrusted to us.”