“And, like you say, being gone all the time…in other places and meeting other people…Gosh, if anything like that can happen I don’t want to go away. I guess new people aren’t any better than old ones. I’ll bet they almost never are, Emily…I feel that you’re as good a friend as I’ve got. I don’t need to go and meet the people in other towns.”
“She entered the story knowing she would emerge from it feeling she had been immersed in the lives of others, in plots that stretched back twenty years, her body full of sentences and moments, as if awaking from sleep with a heaviness caused by unremembered dreams.”
“People you have a history with, they won’t let you go, and as hard as you might try, you can’t disentangle yourself, can’t set yourself free. Maybe after a while you just stop trying.”
“‘As my friend, you should either bring me along, or keep me company.’
‘Friend?’ he asked.
She blushed. ‘Well, ‘scowling escort’ is a better description. Or ‘reluctant acquaintance,’ if you prefer.’”
“Besides considerations as to the possible transfers and promotions likely to result from Ivan Ilych’s death, the mere fact of the death of a near acquaintance aroused, as usual, in all who heard of it the complacent feeling that, “it is he who is dead and not I.”
“Of all the young gentleman whose privilege it had been to make the acquaintance of Mr. Cripps- and there were a good many- he professed the greatest esteem and admiration for Loman...”