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

As I dug in behind one of the bales we were using as protection, I grudgingly found myself agreeing with Oso's logic, especially when I imagined what would have happened to Missy if Old Knife's large party of screeching warriors had overrun our company.

`` That quirt -- I ought to use it on you, where it would do the most good.

I would turn away from my writing in the hope of getting a good look at them but I never quite succeeded.

He pointed out the switch to me and for a moment I foolishly believed that he would let deed follow words.

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

By counting the number of stalls and urinals I attempted to form a loose estimate of how many men the hall would hold at one time.

No sooner would I turn my head away from the counter before he would address me, at times quite sharply, in order to bring back my attention.

As I had expected, he insisted that my visits to the hall would do nothing to further the process of my application.

What sort of men I would come into contact with, at the hall??

Though I doubted that he would understand me, I told the director my motives for applying.

Donald Kruger would like nothing better than to hold him as hostage, and I wouldn't entrust a snake to his tender care.

`` What else would I mean, anyways ''??

`` A body would swear I floated right up here on a cloud ''!!

Forced to realize that this was the end of a very short line I scanned a road marker and discovered what the end of a slightly longer line would be for the old Mexican: Moriarty, New Mexico.

I would have foregone my romantic chances rather than leave a friend sweltering and dusty and -- Well, at least I wouldn't have shouted back a taunt.

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.

`` I never felt better in my life '', Fiske blustered.

) hung on a hook on the wall, and underneath it I could see his tie, knotted, ready to be slipped over his head, a black badge of frayed respectability that ought never to have left his neck.

For weeks I wandered about this neighborhood of warehouses and garages, truck terminals and taxi repair shops, gasoline pumps and longshoremen's lunch counters, yet never did I cease to feel myself a stranger there.

`` I never saw him.

But there's one thing I never seen or heard of, one thing I just don't think there is, and that's a sportin' way o' killin' a man ''!!

I never wear anything at all.

`` No, I never did see his face.

I can never pronounce it ''.

Though I had a great dread of the island and felt I would never leave it alive, I eagerly wrote down everything she told me about its women.

Never, never did I offer him the exclusive rights.

`` I never heard that ''.

I never heard of a poll being taken on the question.

`` As an independent American I considered all who were not for us, and you amongst the rest, as against us, yet be assured that John Jay never ceased to be the friend of Peter Van Schaack ''.

His first inaugural address speaks of `` my country whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love ''.

But I would never have thought of it myself ''.

Then, after overtures to accept a settlement and go through with a divorce, Miriam gave a ghastly echo of Mrs. Micawber by suddenly stating, `` I will never leave Mr. Wright ''.

From her California headquarters, Miriam fired back, `` I shall never divorce Mr. Wright, to permit him to marry Olga Milanoff ''.

), I have never wanted to know what you knew of passion.

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.

I just wanted to hear you say so ''.

If you tell him I made a pass at you he might think you misunderstood something I said or did, so instead of just telling him I made a pass, say I tried to date you and that you agreed so you could prove to him what a louse I really am.

I felt that he looked at me coldly and appraisingly and seemed to be uncertain what his attitude towards me should be, but he did not say one word which might indicate that he had been told of advances to his wife.

I must say the figure was well made up.

Of course, males play a role there, but believe me when I say you wouldn't enjoy yourself one bit on Eromonga.

`` I realize that this is hardly the time to say it, Penny '', said Keith.

How he returned in such a ghastly condition, or why, I cannot say.

`` Bastards '', he would say, `` all I did was put a beat to that Vivaldi stuff, and the first chair clobbered me ''!!

I am naive, they say, to make use of such words.

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.

I leave it to the statisticians to say what they were, but I noticed several a few years ago, during an automobile ride from Memphis to Hattiesburg.

The traditional strategy of the South has been to expose the vices of the North, to demonstrate that the North possessed no superior virtue, to `` show the world that '' as James's Christopher Newman said to his adversaries ) `` however bad I may be, you're not quite the people to say it ''.

A man must be able to say, `` Father, I have sinned '', or there is no hope for him.

I want to say more about Gabriel's so-called fundamental law.

Asked which institution most needs correction, I would say the corporation as it exists in America today.

It is to say rather, I believe, that he has brought to bear on the history, the traditions, and the lore of his region a critical, skeptical mind -- the same mind which has made of him an inveterate experimenter in literary form and technique.

For pride's sake, I will not say that the coy and leering vade mecum of those verses insinuated itself into my soul.

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 ; ;

I fled, however, not from what might have been the natural fear of being unable to disguise from you that the things about my bridegroom -- in the sense you meant the word `` things '' -- which you had been galvanizing yourself to tell me as a painful part of your maternal duty were things which I had already insisted upon finding out for myself ( despite, I may now say, the unspeakable awkwardness of making the discovery on principle, yes, on principle, and in cold blood ) because I was resolved, as a modern woman, not to be a mollycoddle waiting for Life but to seize Life by the throat.