"They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered with better soil and with a higher grade of manure."
— Ernest Hemingway (A Moveable Feast)

"We can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?"
— Edith Wharton (The Age of Innocence)

"[B]ut he had lived in a world in which, as he said, no one who loved ideas need hunger mentally."
— Edith Wharton (The Age of Innocence)

"A game: say something. Close your eyes and say something. Anything, a number, a name. Like this (she closes her eyes): Two, two what? Two women. What do they look like? Wearing black. Where are they? In a park. . . . And then, what are they doing? Try it, it's so easy, why don't you want to play? You know, that's how I talk to myself when I'm alone, I tell myself all kinds of stories. And not only silly stories: actually, I live this way altogether."
— Andre Breton (Nadja)