“She's dearer than life itself, that's all I know.”

“GOD is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and next life.”

“But afterwards, is there nothing more for me in life - no true home - nothing to be dearer to me than myself?”

“She herself had grown up without any one spot of earth being dearer than another: there was no center of earth pieties, of grave endearing traditions, to which her heart could revert and from which it could draw strength for itself and tenderness for others.”

“Don't you see?" she says. "I want your life to be better than mine. That's all any parent wants.”

“Now every mortal has painand sweat is constant,but if there is anything dearer than being alive,it's dark to me.We humans seem disastrously in love with this thing(whatever it is) that glitters on the earth--we call it life. We know no other.The underworld's a blankand all the rest just fantasy.”