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“As he worked on the room, and as it began slowly to take a shape, he realized that for many years, unknown to himself, he had had an image locked somewhere within him like a shamed secret, an image that was ostensibly of a place but which was actually of himself. So it was himself that he was attempting to define as he worked on his study. As he sanded the old boards for his bookcases, and saw the surface roughnesses disappear, the gray weathering flake away to the essential wood and finally to a rich purity of grain and texture—as he repaired his furniture and arranged it in the room, it was himself that he was slowly shaping, it was himself that he was putting into a kind of order, it was himself that he was making possible.”
― John Williams, Stoner

“Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“Within a month he knew that his marriage was a failure; within a year he stopped hoping that it would improve.”
― John Williams, Stoner