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1 " She watched the hulk of marriage drifting down on her frail speed-boat of aspiration, and steered in desperate circles. "
― Sinclair Lewis , Free Air
2 " There was nothing to say to tragedy that had outlived hope. "
3 " Do you suppose it's dangerous?" she asked her father, who said a lot of comforting things that didn't mean anything. "
4 " West of Chicago, "You bet" means "Rather," and "Yes indeed," and "On the whole I should be inclined to fancy that there may be some vestiges of accuracy in your curious opinion," and "You're a liar but I can't afford to say so. "
5 " But she wasn't thinking "Yes." She was thinking, "Milt, what worries me now isn't how I can risk letting the 'nice people' meet you. It's how I can ever waste you on the 'nice people. "
6 " She looked up at columns of crimson and saffron and burning brown, up at the matronly falls, up at lone pines clinging to jutting rocks that must be already crashing toward her, and in the splendor she knew the Panic fear that is the deepest reaction to beauty. "
7 " She knew the exaltation of starting out in the fresh morning for places she had never seen, without the bond of having to return at night. "
8 " Now of all the cosmic problems yet unsolved, not cancer nor the future of poverty are the flustering questions, but these twain: Which is worse, not to wear evening clothes at a party at which you find every one else dressed, or to come in evening clothes to a house where, it proves, they are never worn? And: Which is worse, not to tip when a tip has been expected; or to tip, when the tip is an insult? "
9 " She was used to gracious leisure, attractive uselessness, nut-center chocolates, and a certain wonder as to why she was alive. "
10 " WHEN the windshield was closed it became so filmed with rain that Claire fancied she was piloting a drowned car in dim spaces under the sea. When it was open, drops jabbed into her eyes and chilled her cheeks. She was excited and thoroughly miserable. "
11 " He felt like a man who has asked for a drink of cold charged water and found it warm and flat. "