Shirley Hazzard

The question 'What is it?' took on, here, an aspect of impertinence; one might only learn what it had successively been.

—Shirley Hazzard. The Bay of Noon.

I had no cause to regret my lost innocence, for it had never done me any good: I have lived a much more virtuous life without it.

—Shirley Hazzard. The Bay of Noon.

They had a notice, Please do not touch the paintings; they should forbid the paintings to touch you.

—Shirley Hazzard. The Bay of Noon.

'If you knew,' I told them. 'If you only knew how boring it is.' It was again the contrast between their lives and mine. They, who spent their days freely using their intelligence, could never conceive of work such as mine. 'You couldn’t even imagine it.'

—Shirley Hazzard. The Bay of Noon.