“How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?”

“How do you get off a non-stop flight?”

“White people, who for a long time live alone with Natives, get into the habit of saying what they mean, because they have no reason or opportunity for dissimulation, and when they meet again their conversation keeps the Native tone.”

“But how do you get rid of a god? Is there any religion where they teach you that? How to get your god off your back if he gets too damned obnoxious? No. All you ever get is advice on how to bribe them to leave you alone for a few minutes.”

“You do good work for a long-enough time, I believed, and you'd get noticed.”

“Dear Long-wayaway-one,' very antisocial I am when I don't booze. And no fun when you're not around… Do you love me? Do you want to be a lazy Jane and never work again? Once I stopped boozing I have enjoyed not working. But we can't do it though.”

“Go and do the things you can't. That is how you get to do them.”

“It's an odd feeling-farewell-there is some envy in it. Men go off to be tested for courage and if we're tested at all, it's for patience, for doing without, for how well we can endure loneliness.”

“What a test that is: more than devotion, admiration, passion. If you long and long for someone’s company you love them.”

“Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.”