David

“Nina wondered, for a moment, how one became like that. What did it take to say exactly what you meant, to feel comfortable in the middle of causing discomfort, to not feel so intrinsically as to be as vital to yourself as your blood that it was your responsibility to make things smooth and pleasant for everyone?”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Malibu Rising

“...and my heart tightened for the hard compulsions of the poor.”
― Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome

“Dana had Society, Respectability, Tradition, Moral judgment, Time, Security (especially Security), and the generations of cuckolded husbands who had provided him with lessons in how to win by employing patience. Dana Holmes could afford to laugh at Milt Warden who had the audacity to try to defeat this array of heavy artillery with the popgun of Love. Because could you just point out to me once, please, sir, one single time that Love had ever bought anything? In these United States of the United Middle Class of Solid-Fronted United Greater America?”
― James Jones, From here to eternity: de volledige en ongecensureerde editie

“Was it possible to throw his life away in order to be polite?”
― Ian McEwan, Lessons