When things are taking their ordinary course, it is hard to remember what matters.

Then there is the matter of my mother's abandonment of me. Again, this is the common experience. They walk ahead of us, and walk too fast, and forget us, they are so lost in thoughts of their own, and soon or late they disappear. The only mystery is that we expect it to be otherwise.

The locus of the human mystery is perception of this world. From it proceeds every thought, every art.

The old man always said we should attend to the things we have some hope of understanding, and eternity isn't one of them. Well, this world isn't one either.

Salvation was universally considered to be much more becoming in women than in men.

A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.

Rejoice with those who rejoice." I have found that difficult too often. I was much better at weeping with those who weep.