topics: |  fiction | usa | epistolary | classic

Excerpts

It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a
great deal out of the little ones ...  I'm going to have intensive
living. I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm
enjoying it as I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live; they just
race. They are trying to reach for some goal far away and they get so
breathless and panting that they lose all sight of the beautiful,
tranquil country they are passing through. - p.135

What a colorless life a man is forced to lead , when one reflects that
chiffon and Venetian point and hand embroidery and Irish crochet are
to him mere empty words.  Whereas a woman -- whether she is interested
in babies or microbes or husbands or poetry or servants or
parallelograms or gardens or Plato or bridge -- is fundamentally
interested in clothes. - p.131

Amasai and Carrie got married last May. As far as I can see it has
spoiled them both. She used to laugh when he tramped in mud or dropped
ashes on the floor, but now - you should hear her scold! And she
doesn't curl her hair any longer. ... I've determined never to marry.
It's a deteriorating process, evidently. - p.176