A small silence came between us, as precise as a picture hanging on the wall.

Silence on a hill where the path endedand then the forest belowmoving in one long whisperas evening touched the leaves.

. . . You were aimed from birth:you will never be alone. Rainwill come, a gutter filled, an Amazon,long aisles -- you never heard so deep a sound,moss on rock, and years. You turn your head --that's what the silence meant: you're not alone. The whole wide world pours down.

From time to time, I need a rest from the exercitation of my intellect.

She did observe, with some dismay, that far from conquering all, love lazily sidestepped practical problems.

. . . as she moved from table to table, endeavoring to understand the [gambling] games, she realized that either her memory was at fault or Hollywood had carelessly added an apocryphal glitter and subtracted an essential gloom.