"Self-pity is the hens' besetting sin," remarked Mr. Payton. "Foolish fowl. How they came to achieve anything as perfect as the egg I do not know! I cannot fathom."
- Elizabeth Enright
"Already he knew that to overdo a thing is to destroy it."
"By lunchtime the valley was lightly coated, like a cake with confectioner's sugar...there was white fur on the antlers of the iron deer and on the melancholy boughs of the Norway spruce."
"The summer,' Randy explained. 'I'm going to appreciate it. I'm going to walk in the woods noticing everything, and ride my bike on all the roads I never explored. I'm going to fill a pillow with ladie..."
"Summer was over in twenty minutes that day. Finished. At four o'clock in the afternoon the roses were quiet on their stems, full-blown, fulfilled; the water in the pool was warm; the leaves on the tre..."
"All over the city lights were coming on in the purple-blue dusk. The street lights looked delicate and frail, as though they might suddenly float away from their lampposts like balloons. Long twirling..."