Book: This side of Paradise

All the valuable thing you acquire in life come to you not with the way that something you searched for last year.

Always in tragedy there is this absurdity, this dirt... it's all so worthless, so meaningless... animals die.

Left wise, there's no heroes; Emory defeated hundreds of books, hundreds of false fictions; he long and eagerly listened to the people who pretended to know and didn't know anything.

It is possible that it [religion] is nothing more than empty ritual, but apparently it is the only consistently effective protection against the decline of morality. While the masses will not be able to raise ethical criteria, someone needs to shout "No!".

At dinner we sit down together. We're made for each other.

Somebody said that you have piercing eyes?
Emory tried to make them still more shrilly. It seemed to him, or just imagined? - she under the table with his foot touch his feet. However, it could be just the leg of the table. It's hard to say. And if you still?.. He began to figure out how they might retire to a little lounge on the second floor.

Several students who saw her in passing, asserted that "little good is to see what happens." But in her stories was that she participated in orgies, capable of hitting even some Austrian Baron. Such is the power of young contralto, cooing at the low, wide sofa.

Fearing loneliness, he had two or three friends, but because they did not belong to the school of the elite, used them just like a mirror, as the audience, in front of which posed, ― without which it could not live. He was terribly sad, incredibly hard.

- You're a strange boy, Myra said thoughtfully.
- What? Now he was all ears.
- Yes, always babbling something incomprehensible. Tomorrow we're going skiing with me and Marilyn?
- I don't like girls in the daytime - he snapped and then, recollecting himself, that's a bit harsh, he added: - You have something I like. - He cleared his throat. - You come first, second and third place.
Myra's eyes became dreamy. To tell about it Marilyn - behold the wonder! As they sat on the couch with this unusual boy, and the fireplace was burning, and the feeling that they are alone in all of this immense house.
Myra surrendered. Very relaxed was the atmosphere.
- You have me from the first to the twenty-fifth, she confessed in a trembling voice, - and Froggy Parker twenty-sixth.
One hour Froggy lost twenty-five points, but he has not had time to notice it.
Amory, being on spot, leaned forward and kissed Myra on the cheek. He has never kissed a girl and now licked his lips, as if she'd tasted something unfamiliar berry. Then their lips gently closed, like wildflowers in the wind.

... how ephemeral and worthless people, if you do not see them as successors to and bearers of the past.

He was amazed that the sea is blue it roars incessantly - in short, all the most banal, than it can hit the ocean, but if he at that moment said everything is corny, he just gasped from amazement.

... religion under the impact of the disaster is of no value and at best short-lived.

Oh, shit! Forget to think about it! You still say that if the girl was standing, she would have me wait? No, my dear, the girl is really worth achieving, no one will not wait.

Physical courage depends on how physically fit people.