You can't kill a minuet de la coeur. You may shut up the music book... but surely the minuet — the minuet itself is dancing itself away into the furt… - Ford Madox Ford

Isn't there any heaven where old beautiful dances, old beautiful intimacies prolong themselves?

You can't kill a minuet de la coeur. You may shut up the music book... but surely the minuet — the minuet itself is dancing itself away into the furthest stars, even as our minuet of the Hessian bathing places must be stepping itself still.

New York is large, glamorous, easy-going, kindly and incurious, but above all it is a crucible - because it is large enough to be incurious.

These trenches are like Pompeii, sir.

That was what a young woman was for. You seduced a young woman in order to be able to finish your talks with her. You could not do that without living with her. You could not live with her without seducing her; but that was the by-product. The point is that you can’t otherwise talk. You can’t finish talks at street corners; in museums; even in drawing-rooms. You mayn’t be in the mood when she is in the mood – for the intimate conversation that means the final communion of your souls. You have to wait together - for a week, for a year, for a lifetime, before the final intimate conversation may be attained … and exhausted …

That in effect was love.