Many said that now there was no hope of salvation, for a man might do anything and be in the wrong. There was no way to tell. It was better to stay on the steading and mind the cows and be content with such days as are left to one and cease to wonder about life everlasting.

Ignorance is a self-generating state of mind; one of its characteristics is that it doesn't recognize itself as ignorance.

As soon as you bring up money, I notice, conversation gets sociological, then political, then moral.

The one thing ... maybe no family could tolerate was things coming out into the open.

Your sons weren't made to like you. That's what grandchildren are for.

Charles Dickens was an avid seeker of names - he read directories and looked for odd names on gravestones.

In the traditional urban novel, there is only survival or not. The suburban idea, the conformist idea, that agony can be seen to and cured by doctors or psychoanalysis or self-knowledge is nowhere to be found in the city. Talking is a way of life, but it is not a cure. Same with religion.