It is a queer and fantastic world. Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has got the wr… - Ford Madox Ford

Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has the wrong thing.

It is a queer world and fantastic world. Why can't people have what they want?

Is there then any terrestrial paradise where, amidst the whispering of the olive-leaves, people can be with whom they like and have what they like and take their ease in shadows and in coolness? Or all men's lives like the lives of us good people - like the lives of the Ashburnhams, of the Dowells, of the Ruffords - broken, tumultuous, agonized, and unromantic lives, periods punctuated by screams, by imbecilities, by deaths, by agonies? Who the devil knows?

Oh, child,' the Father exclaimed, 'whether it's St Martha or that Mary that made the bitter choice, not one of them ever looked more virtuous than you. Why aren't ye born to be a good man's help-meet?

But of course he hates you for being in the army. All the men who aren’t hate all the men that are.

there are times when to a poor priest the rule of the Church as regards marriage seems bitter hard