Disturbing the Peace

"You don't have much use for black people, do you, Mr Wilder? Deep down you wish we'd all go away. You think our lips are too thick and our noses too flat and you shudder at the thought of our kinky hair. Isn't that about right, Mr Wilder?"

she talked less, or at least did less of the kind of talking whose only purpose was to fill silence

To find order in chaos - why, of course; that was what he'd wanted all his life.

He had been born for this, for finding order in chaos, and all the wasted years has been a mistake.

To find order in chaos; to find order in chaos.

..."a man doesn't spend all these years building something and then kick it to pieces. Don't - well, to put it coarsely, don't shit where you eat."

The first drink tasted so good that he let her do most of the talking while he savored it, sitting beside her and watching her profile. The tip of her small nose bobbed very slightly up and down at each syllable beginning with p, b or m, and that seemed a lovely thing for a girl's nose to do.

"There's something we have to discuss," she said, and from the way she said it he knew it wouldn't be a discussion at all. She had something to tell him - something he wouldn't like - and he had better shut up and sit down and listen.

It seemed only a few minutes later that he woke with a sense that the world was coming apart.