“In every age "the good old days" were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them. ”

“The most fatal illusion is the settled point of view. Since life is growth and motion, a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one.”

“His submissive death was the surest proof that he wholly believed the faith he had lived. He had no regrets or misgivings. "One world at a time," he said to Channing, who was speculating on the hereafter. When someone else inquired whether he had made his peace with God, he answered, "We have never quarreled.”

“The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking.”

“Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.”

“Some people spend their whole lives looking for themselves, yet our self is the one thing we surely cannot lose (how like a cheap philosopher I am become, staying in this benighted place). From the moment we are conceived it is the pattern in our blood and our bones are printed through with it like sticks of seaside rock. Nora, on the other hand, says that she’s surprised anyone knows who they are, considering that every cell and molecule in our bodies has been replaced many times over since we were born.”

“The roof of the big top was dark blue, spangled with silver stars, and it reminded him of something but he couldn't think what, and then he realized it was the roof - the vault of heaven - in a side chapel at the Catholic church where his mother dragged them three times a day on Sunday when they were very small, until she ran out of energy and let the devil have them. (One Good Turn)”