Only one thing never changes – the human heart. Revolutions and ideologies may lacerate it, even break it, but they cannot change its essence. After … - William Alexander Percy

Whenever you are just about to decide that Americans are selfish, unpatriotic, and unintelligent, they always prove themselves the most liberal and lovable people in the world. You simply can't stay disgusted with them. What a pity they are not disciplined enough to survive! (Ch. 20)

Delta girls are born dancing and never stop, which is as it should be, for surely it is the finest form of human amusement except tennis and talking. (Ch. 12)

That short period of my life spent in the line is the only one I remember step by step – as if it moved sub specie aeternitatis. Not that I enjoyed it; I hated it. Not that I was fitted for it by temperament or ability, I was desperately unfitted; but it, somehow, had meaning, and daily life hasn't: it was part of a common endeavor, and daily life is isolated and lonely. (Ch. 17, on his service on the Western Front in World War I)