Once you’ve had a thought there’s no reason to ever have it again.

The things you joke about during the day can fill you with dread in the middle of the night.

Their rigorously maintained veneer of civility lasted 90 seconds into his birthday toast.

He had, without realizing it, absorbed the professional trick of imputing grave urgency to statements of no importance.

In her twenties she was pretty, by her thirties beautiful. And now, finally, she was as ugly as she’d always felt.