...the people... they are church-broken, nation-broken — they drink and pray and piss in the one place. Every man has a house-broken heart except the… - Djuna Barnes

She was nervous about the future; it made her indelicate. She was one of the most unimportantly wicked women of her time — because she could not let her time alone, and yet could never be a part of it. She wanted to be the reason for everything and so was the cause of nothing. She had the fluency of tongue and action meted out by divine providence to those who cannot think for themselves. She was the master of the over-sweet phrase, the over-tight embrace.

As an amputated hand cannot be disowned because it is experiencing a futurity, of which the victim is its forebear, so Robin was an amputation that Nora could not renounce.

A man is whole only when he takes into account his shadow as well as himself — and what is a man's shadow but his upright astonishment?