“He had no living relatives anywhere capable of leaving him a fortune in a will. He owed no money. He had never stolen anything, never cheated anybody. Never fathered any children. He was on as few pieces of paper as it was possible for a human being to get. He was just about invisible.”

“He expects nothing, she thought, because he's never had anything. And nothing was expected of him. He was free in a way she never would be.”

“Man…. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

“I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.”

“We never had any children," he said ruefully. "Our work was our children.”

“Charles was a stubborn Swede, you know, and he himself never felt the need to explain his feelings about where he stood and about past statements. But I feel free now to elaborate on his actual attitudes. He never wanted to be regarded as a hero or leader, and he never had political ambitions. His prewar isolationist speeches were given in all sincerity for what he thought was the good of the country and the world… He was accused of being anti-Semetic, but in the 45 years I lived with him I never heard him make a remark against the Jews, not a crack or joke, and neither did any of our children.”

“Jason listened to Mr. Hobart going on about violence and the uselessness of revenge and he nodded, but all the time, he was happy. He had done something. He had taken action. He had socked Bobo Kelton. Given him a bloody nose. He didn't think he'd ever hit anybody again but he had proved himself capable of doing it. And at the same moment, in Mr. Hobart's office, letting the principal's words fil the air but not his ears, he had vowed never to cry again.”

“He had lived a very long time, and only since he gained Anna had he learned to fear. He’d discovered that he had never been brave before—just indifferent. She had taught him that to be brave, you have to fear losing something.”

“Fortune had done him few favors in the past, and he wasn’t sure he trusted it.”

“As he thought of it, though, he could not imagine what “just living” might actually be. He had never done it in his life. But he wanted to do it anyway.”