“Wasting talent is a sin. Im not big on sin, but I know a sin when I see one staring me in the face. Im not big on sin, but I know a sin when I see one staring me in the face. Its just not courteous...”

“All the men I know add that hands that prepared it line. They must know its right complimentary, an incentive to keep the women cooking.”

“The choice was whether to be sad and foolish or sad and reasonable.”

“Old age breeds the miracle of recall. You have no short-term memory atall; you cant remember what you did minutes ago, but you can recall with exquisite clarity what you did on your fifth birthday ...”

“Neva ought to smile more. It breaks her anxiety into tiny pieces of joy you want to gather up and hand back to her in your palms, as if to say, See what you can make when you loose the reins.”

“Im serious, now let me know every time you see her cry. The thought brings me great joy. Hope.”

“...I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should. We all come home, or ought to come home, for a short holiday - the longer, the better - from the great boarding-school, where we are for...”

“He went to the church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and for, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of ho...”

“The Christmas presents once opened are Not So Much Fun as they were while we were in the process of examining, lifting, shaking, thinking about, and opening them. Three hundred sixty-five days late...”