I remember being told it would happen so fast people would think it took place overnight.

Later I would remember what this pompous little man had told me about the worth of a ticket.

It was a disturbingly familiar face, too, but I couldn't remember where we had met.

`` When I was in college '', I grinned, `` I remember a poem I had to read in my lit class.

I don't even remember who wrote it but it was one of those 15th or 16th century poets.

`` Seems to me I don't remember altering any law about that ''.

You probably would not remember, since you never seemed to remember even the same moments as I, much less their intensity, one sunny midday on Fifth Avenue when you had set out with me for some final shopping less than a week before the wedding you staged for me with such reluctance at the Farm.

When I returned to make my report, the Hetman did not remember having sent me on the secret mission.

I remember one day when Mr. Hearst ( and I never knew why he liked me, either ) sent the Hetman a telegram: `` Please find some more reporters like that young man from Denver ''.

I cannot remember Dr. Gregory's reply, if, indeed, he made one.

After they had paid all his debts and the funeral costs, Ralph and Fred had some fourteen thousand dollars, as I remember, with which to pay the bequests.

I remember him pointing out of the window and saying that he wished he could live to see another spring but that he wouldn't.

I have known some men and women who said that the selves they are told about or even remember seem utter strangers to them now ; ;

I would, however, like to suggest that, wrong though I may be, the tendency to see dilemmas rather than solutions is one of which I have been a victim ever since I can remember, and therefore not merely a senile phenomenon.

Apropos of what some would call cynicism, I remember an anecdote the source of which I forget.

All I could remember was Billie Dove pasted over the ceiling of my big brother's room.

I just can't take any chances on getting her pregnant, and if we were sleeping together ''

`` I saw your fire '', she said, speaking slowly, making an effort to control her anger.

`` I won't force Beth to come against her will.

`` Got a lot to tend to, but I'll get back quick as I can '', he assured her.

`` I've got her as neat as I can '', Donovan said, as he dropped the straps of the Seton harness over Greg's shoulders.

I let up on the accelerator, only to gradually reach again the 60 m.p.h. which would, I hoped, overhaul Herry and the blonde, and as there were cars whose drivers apparently had something more important to catch than had I, Mrs. Major Roebuck settled down to practicing on Corporal Johnson the kittenish wiles she would need when making her duty call on Colonel and Mrs. Somebody in Sante Fe.

How lightly her `` eventshah-leh '' passed into the crannies where I was storing dialect material for some vaguely dreamed opus, and how the word would echo.

I guided her to the divan, turned off the TV, faced her.

She was still hugging the stained coat around her, so I said, `` Relax, let me take your things.

She stood up, pulled the coat from her shoulders and started to slide it off, then let out a high-pitched scream and I let out a low-pitched, wobbling sound like a muffler blowing out.

There had been a good second or two during which my muffler had been blowing out, and now I was certain I'd seen her somewhere before.

I sat by her on the divan.

She realized I'd have to notify the police, but fervently hoped I could avoid mentioning her name.

But I promised Joyce I would mention her name, if at all, only as a last resort.

I showed her the shower and tub, and she said, smiling, `` If you really don't mind, I think I'll get clean in the shower, then soak for a few minutes in your tub.

One Monday morning I saw him approach the store with a woman and introduce me to her as my new Aunt.

You must forgive me if I seem to dwell too much on her physical aspects but I am an artist, accustomed to studying the physical body.

And that is the way I first saw her when my Uncle brought her into his antique store.

I lived in a state of suspense because of it.

I had come to New Orleans two years earlier after graduating college, partly because I loved the city and partly because there was quite a noted art colony there.

My Uncle and I were not too close socially because of the difference in our ages.

I dismissed these feelings as wishful thinking but I could not get it out of my head that we had a strong physical attraction for one another and we both feared to dwell on it because of our relationship.

`` But knowing you, I know that you're glad to be alive, and grateful -- and sorry because I killed the snake, even though I had to.

You hate me, you hate my guts, because I like to hunt.

You actually hate me -- and we both know it -- because I killed that filthy snake.

and I have heard many say that they are content to earn a half or a third as much as they could up North because they so much prefer the quieter habits of their home town.

Sometimes I guessed it was because the rain squall had changed direction.

`` I suppose because it saves them some loss of body water.

The persistent horror of having a malformed child has, I believe, been reduced, not because we have gained any control over this misfortune, but precisely because we have learned that we have so little control over it.

I knew that a conversation with the author would not settle such questions, because a man is not the same as his writing: in the last analysis, the questions had to be settled by the work itself.

I suggested that one must let it in because it is the truth, but Beckett did not take to the word truth.

And if I have gone into so much detail about so small a work, that is because it is also so typical a work, representing the germinal form of a conflict which remains essential in Mann's writing: the crude sketch of Piepsam contains, in its critical, destructive and self-destructive tendencies, much that is enlarged and illuminated in the figures of, for instance, Naphta and Leverkuhn.

`` I hated the war '', he said, `` but thought I ought to go because I was, perhaps, one of those who hadn't done enough to prevent it ''.

At the same time, I am aware that my recoil could be interpreted by readers of the tea leaves at the bottom of my psyche as an incestuous sign, since theirs is a science of paradox: if one hates, they say it is because one loves ; ;