One never took the time to savour the details; one said: another day, but always with the hidden knowledge that each day was unique and fatal, that t… - Paul Bowles

Always in conjunction with his fantasies he saw the imperturbable, faintly questioning face in its mask-like symmetry. He felt a sudden shudder of self pity that was almost pleasurable, it was such a complete expression of his mood. It was a physical shudder; he was alone, abandoned, lost, hopeless, cold. Cold especially – a deep interior cold nothing could change. Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being; he had built the being around it.

She was saved from prettiness by the intensity of her gaze.

"Polly belonged wholly to her time. Alert to its defects and dangers, she nevertheless had reached what she herself called an "adjustment," and she was very firm in her belief that without the attainment of a state of conscious harmony with the society in which he functioned, no individual could hope to accomplish much of anything"