Creedless shells of men tottering down the causeways like migrants in a feverland.

I guess you ought to be careful about cussin the dead. I would say at the least there probably ain't no luck in it.

Suppose you were the last one left? Suppose you did that to yourself?

In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments. Those whom life does not cure death will. The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and reality, even where we will not. Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting. I've thought a great deal about my life and my country. I think there is little that can be truly known. My family has been fortunate. Others were less so. As they are often quick to point out.

They came upon themselves in a mirror and he almost raised the pistol. It's us, Papa, the boy whispered. It's us.

He believed in God even if he was doubtful of men's claims to know God's mind. But that a God unable to forgive was no God at all.

It was the nature of his profession that his experience with death should be greater than for most and he said that while it was true that time heals bereavement it does so only at the cost of the slow extinction of those loved ones from the heart's memory which is the sole place of their abode then or now. Faces fade, voices dim. Seize them back, whispered the sepulturero. Speak with them. Call their names. Do this and do not let sorrow die for it is the sweetening of every gift.