“I tell you this true story just to prove that I can. That my frailty has not yet reached a point at which I can no longer tell a true story.”

“We still counted happiness and health and love and luck and beautiful children as "ordinary blessings.”

“When we talk about mortality we are talking about our children.”

“Alcohol has its own well-know defects as a medication for depression but no one has ever suggested - ask any doctor - that it is not the most effective anti-anxiety agent yet known.”

“Do not whine... Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone.”

“Memories are what you no longer want to remember.”

“It's probably a merciful thing that pain is impossible to describe from memory”

“Yes. We both have a bad feeling. Tonight we shall take our bad feelings and share them, and face them. We shall mourn. We shall drain the bitter dregs of mortality. Pain shared, my brother, is pain...”

“Time deals gently only with those who take it gently.”