Margaret Leigh

It was sad, it was deplorable, it was petty, lording it over these unsuspecting good people, she knew that, but it got rid of some of her pent-up fury for a moment. If there was no one to vent it on, it came out against mute objects. A thread wouldn’t go through the eye of the needle—she snapped it. A drawer wouldn’t close—she slammed it shut with

Christine stands mute and confused between the two of them, feeling she’s in the way. Something’s happened, something she doesn’t understand. Lightning has struck; now she waits with beating heart for the thunder which doesn’t come and doesn’t come and yet must come. She doesn’t dare to ask any questions, doesn’t dare to think, but knows with every

“All right,” Christine hears herself say quietly. Why is she still sitting here? They just want her gone, and fast. But why? Something must have happened, something. She eats mechanically, tasting bitterness in every bite. I have to say something, something casual, she thinks—she doesn’t want them to see that her eyes are stinging, that her throat

The old man stares at the tip of his cane. Ever since the war he’s had a low opinion of people and of nations, they’re selfish, all of them, without the imagination to see the injustices they’re perpetrating. The idealism of his youth, a belief in the moral mission of mankind and the enlightened spirit of the white race that he took from the lectur

People who are comfortable with themselves don’t react strongly to what goes on around them, and Anthony is too confirmed in his apathy to care whether it’s Linseys or Guggenheims he has for gambling partners, whether the mountain outside the window is the Schwarzhorn or the Wetterhorn, or whether the hotel is the Palace or the Astoria. He just wan

One feeling drowns out all the others, a boundless rage, a dull, clenched, impotent rage without outlet or object (her aunt, her mother, fate), the rage of someone who has suffered an injustice. All she knows is that something has been taken from her, that now she must leave that blissfully winged self to become a blind grub crawling on the ground;

Fear is a distorting mirror in which anything can appear as a caricature of itself, stretched to terrible proportions; once inflamed, the imagination pursues the craziest and most unlikely possibilities.

Someone who’s on top of the world isn’t much of an observer: happy people are poor psychologists.

She sees his face as though for the first time, hard, tanned, vigorous, his decisive mouth beneath the trimmed beard, his eyes accosting her, boring into her. A kind of pride stirs in her: this man, so solid, so masculine, wants me, just me, and I’m the only one who knows.