“Experience taught him that the future was uncertain and one could prepare for it only by learning indifference to disappointment and loss.”

“and taught him the only thing he had to learn about love: that nobody teaches life anything.”

“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.”

“When the uncertain future becomes the past, the past in turn becomes uncertain.”

“This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.”

“Disappointment can come only to those who make appointments with the future.”

“So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts.”

“Blessings may appear under the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let him have patience, and he will see them in their proper figures.”

“The future is uncertain but the end is always near.”

“The future is no more uncertain than the present.”