But there are no absolutes in human misery and things can always get worse

See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire.

To have a child when you're older, it wrenches you up out of your nap and makes you look at things, you know, afresh. It forces the world on you. And I think it's a good thing.

Query: How does the never to be differ from what never was?

It had ceased raining in the night and he walked out on the road and called for the dog. He called and called. Standing in that inexplicable darkness. Where there was no sound anywhere save only the wind. After a while he sat in the road. He took off his hat and placed it on the tarmac before him and he bowed his head and held his face in his hands and wept. He sat there for a long time and after a while the east did gray and after a while the right and godmade sun did rise, once again, for all and without distinction.

The passing of armies and the passing of sands in the desert are one.

Nothin wounded goes uphill, he said. It just dont happen.