Two features would be with her always. Her chin was firm and her mouth was as sweet as a flower and very wide and pink. Her hazel eyes were sharp and intelligent and completely fearless.
Hurry home, darling,” she said. “Hurry home.” And how’s that for a man to have! When I hung up, I stood by the phone all weak and leaky and happy if there is such a condition. I tried to think how it had been before Mary, and I couldn’t remember, or how it would be without her, and I could not imagine it except that it would be a condition bordered in black.
How pure he is, how unfit for a world that even she knew more about than he did. A dragon killer, he was, a rescuer of damsels, and his small sins seemed so great to him that he felt unfit and unseemly.
The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the causes of revolt went on.
The dark swallowed him, but his dragging footsteps could be heard a long time after he had gone, footsteps along the road; and a car came by on the highway, and its lights showed the ragged man shuffling along the road, his head hanging down and his hands in the black coat pockets.
They say a good soldier fights a battle, never a war. That’s for civilians.
Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice.
They had long ago found out that one could not be an owner unless one were cold.
Strangers talked freely to one another without caution. I had forgotten how rich and beautiful is the countryside – the deep topsoil, the wealth of great trees, the lake country of Michigan handsome as a well-made woman, and dressed and jeweled. It seemed to me that the earth is generous and outgoing here in the heartland, and perhaps the people took a cue from it.
Sometimes I think you realists are the most sentimental people in the world.
Please try not to need me. That’s the worst bait of all to a lonely man.
Love and fighting, and a little wine. Then you are always young, always happy.
What a wonderful thing a woman is. I can admire what they do even if I don’t understand why.
If he considered God at all, he thought of Him as an old and honored general, retired and gray, living among remembered battles and putting wreaths on the graves of his lieutenants several times a year.
It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, ‘I couldn’t help it; the way was set.’ But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There’s no godliness there.
The ancients placed love and war in the hands of closely related gods.
When the first innocence goes, you can’t stop – unless you’re a hypocrite or a fool.
He ain’t no cuckoo,” said George. “He’s dumb as hell, but he ain’t crazy. An’ I ain’t so bright neither, or I wouldn’t be buckin’ barley for my fifty and found.
The paintings on the wall were largely preoccupied with the amazing heroism of large dogs faced with imperiled children. Nor water nor fire nor earthquake could do in a child so long as a big dog was available.
I love people so much I’m fit to bust, sometimes.