There wasn't any answer to that. So he tried harder, and the question got more circumstantial and tentative, and at the same time more precise and ex… - John Crowley

So few of us, she thought, so much love and so few to spend it on, no wonder we get tangled up.

He looked up into Daily Alice’s placid and certain face, wondering why every deepening of these daily mysteries left him less inclined to probe them. “The things that make us happy,” he said, “make us wise.

"It must take a lot of self-discipline,' she said.

'Oh, I don't know. I don't have much.' He felt himself about to say again, and unable to resist saying, that 'Dumas, I think it was Dumas, some terrifically prolific Frenchman, said that writing novels is a simple matter - if you write one page a day, you'll write one novel a year, two pages a day, two novels a year, three pages, three novels, and so on. And how long does it take to cover a page with writing? Twenty minutes? An hour? So you see. Very easy really.'

'I don't know,' she said, laughing. 'I can't even bring myself to write a letter.'

'Oh, now that's hard.'
("Novelty")"