There's small choice in rotten apples.

On the trees are only a few gnarled apples that the pickers have rejected. They look like the knuckles of Doctor Reefy's hands. One nibbles at them and they are delicious. Into a little round place at the side of the apple has been gathered all its sweetness. One runs from tree to tree over the frosted ground picking the gnarled, twisted apples and filling his pockets with them. Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples.

Only a few know, how much one must know to know how little one knows.

The story of Doctor Reefy and his courtship of the tall dark girl who became his wife and left her money to him is a very curious story. It is delicious, like the twisted little apples that grow in the orchards of Winesburg. In the fall one walks in the orchards and the ground is hard with frost underfoot. The apples have been taken from the trees by the pickers. They have been put in barrels and shipped to the cities where they will be eaten in apartments that are filled with books, magazines, furniture, and people. On the trees are only a few gnarled apples that the pickers have rejected. They look like the knuckles of Doctor Reefy's hands. One nibbles at them and they are delicious. Into a little round place at the side of the apple has been gathered all of its sweetness. One runs from tree to tree over the frosted ground picking the gnarled, twisted apples and filling his pockets with them. Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples.

There are few who are worthy to understand what I feel. [...] I seek out those who are of this chosen few, and I avoid the rest.

one bad apple spoils the bunch,

Things of the first importance are few; let appreciation be rare.

The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch.

The rotten apple spoils his companions.

I learned that every mortal will taste death, But only some will taste life.

"A Mixed-breed Apple"

A little mixed-breed apple,
half red, half yellow, tells this story.

A lover and beloved get separated.
Their being apart was one thing,
but they have opposite responses.

The lover feels pain and grows pale.
The beloved flushes and feels proud.

I am a thorn next to my master's rose.
We seem to be two, but we are not.

It is sometimes better to be content with a small, sour apple than to eat strange fruits in an alien country.

Few, But Pure.

And then they eat the apple, the knowledge of the opposites.