Benedict Freedman

“Katherine Mary, we're going to know each other very wel, for many years, I hope. You'll see, you'll come to understand. These big things, these terrible things, are not important ones. If they were, how could one go on living? No, it is the small, little things that make up a day, that bring fullness and happiness to a life. Your sergeant coming home, a good dinner, your little Mary laughing, the smell of the woods- oh, so many things, you know them yourself.”

“When little things are so important, it's because there aren't any big ones.”

“You'll see, you'll come to understand. These big things, these terrible things, are not the important ones. If they were, how could one go on living? No, it is the small, little things that make up a day, that bring fullness and happiness to a life.”

“I shook off my numbness. I opened the door and went into the other bedroom. Two little figures stood on the bed. One had a shirt over his head which Mike was trying to pull past his ears. "Here," I said, "you've got to unbutton another button." "Then you'd have to take the whole thing off," he protested. "There are time when it pays to start all over again, and this is one of them.”

“Mike was right: the pattern of life isn't a straight line; it crosses and recrosses, drawing in and tying together other lives, as I do when I gather in the ends of my thread to make a knot.”

“But death does not stand at the end of life, it is all through it. It is the fear of losing, the knowledge of losing that makes love tender.”

“I turned my face to the sky and laughed because the things you enjoy can’t hurt you.”