“The curse of the middle-aged man was knowing — or believing — that he'd told all he had to tell. Soon as you suspect that, you started wanting something, anything, to prove it wasn't so: and that's where the mistakes started, when the bad things happened.”

“I started crying again, my voice ragged. He told me to calm down. He told me it was going to be all right. And then, he told he'd be there soon.”

“So where do you start when you want to start your life again?”

“She started walking again. "Are you saying you didn't even want to be with her? Not even just a little?"
He stopped. "How could I want to be with her when I want to be with you? I told you that before this whole thing started.”

“He knew that soon, perhaps even today, something important was going to happen. Whether good or bad he did not know, but he darkly suspected. And with reason: there are few good things that may unexpectedly happen to a man, things, that is, of lasting importance. Disaster can strike from innumerable directions, in amazingly diverse ways.”

“This is what happens when you get old. You start thinking. Worse, you start telling everybody what you think.”

“Things Happen and once they start happening you pretty much just to hold on for dear life and see where they drop you when they stop.”

“When you hear that a certain man is so good that he wants to help everybody, you may depend upon it that he started the story.”

“When you don't know where you're going, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to have more than you need.”

“The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.”