Disappointing, humbled, and self-condemned, in broken accents, and with a faultering tongue, he was withdrawing, without having the assurance once to pronounce the name of Laura […] .

At eight you thought of boys as cat drowners and bird stoners. At nine there was another reason for boys' existence: they either noticed you or they didn't, and it desperately mattered which.

I proposed to lay out in jewels, and I can't persuade her to let me entirely new-furnish my house.

The river winds underneath it, and the great spoked wheel turns slowly, tossing the water into a cloud of yellow foam, flinging the spray afar into the dark, flowing stream, catching it again; playing with it, half sportive, half fierce, like some monster alive.