“The tune was wailing and mournful, almost flagrantly so, and the total effect was of a heartbroken piccolo being parted forever from its bagpipe lover.”

“You have to be very deep to be dead, he thought, and I'm not. He began to have some concept of forever, and his mind shivered as his body had when he had wakened in the cold nights and thrust his h...”

“I'll tell you something. Once I was very fond of a poem by Emily Dickinson or somebody. I only remember one line of it, but it goes, 'The soul selects her own society.' I used to tell it to everybo...”

“You think this is living? This is eating, nothing else.”

“So I had something to do, something I'd done, someplace to go, and something to look forward to. That's a reasonable way to live. I enjoyed myself living. I had a good time. How much else can you a...”

“There are no happy endings, he knew, because nothing ends; and if there were any being dispensed, a great many worthier people would be in line for them long before Michael and Laura and himself. B...”

“Another decent possibility my critics implicitly deny is that of work as a giftThey assumeand this is the orthodox assumption of the industrial economythat the only help worth giving is not given a...”

“Happiness doesn't result from what we get, but from what we give.”

“You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.”

“An extended hand is the best weapon against a clenched fist.”

“If you want your life to stand for peace and kindness, it's helpful to do kind, peaceful things.”

“Demonstrating verbal kindness looks better on everyone know matter what the situation. There's a peace in the heart of the kind person who handles everything with love.”