“There is often a great deal more of the past in the future than there was in the past itself at the time... one learns little by little that a thing is not over because it is not happening with noise and shape or outward sign.”

“If you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour. If you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn.”

“The human heart is like india-rubber; a little swells it, but a great deal will not burst it. If "little more than nothing will disturb it, little less than all things will suffice" to break it. As in the outer members of our frame, there is a vital power inherent in itself that strengthens it against external violence. Every blow that shakes it will serve to harden it against a future stroke; as constant labour thickens the skin of the hand, and strengthens its muscles instead of wasting them away: so that a day of arduous toil, that might excoriate a lady's palm, would make no sensible impression on that of a hardy ploughman.”

“Her past is behind her, her future is of little concern. She moves towards the grave, at her own speed.”

“The shadow past is shaped by everything that never happened. Invisible, it melts the present like rain through karst.”

“….but at the same time, they got a miracle. It wasn’t the kind that comes on a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day float. And it wasn’t the one that they wanted, where God would reach down from the sky and touch their girl with a magic wand and restore her to perfect health. Maybe that will still happen-who knows? I wouldn’t put anything past God, because he or she is one crafty mother. Still, they did get a miracle, one of those dusty little red-wagon miracles, and they understand this.”

“The world more often rewards outward signs of merit than merit itself.”