“The things men did or felt they had to do.”

“It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do. ”

“Dusk, suggesting the almost imperceptible posession of giant trees, settled with a purple haze about the cane. I felt strange, as I always do in Georgia, particularly at dusk. I felt that things unseen to men were tangibly immediate. It would not have surprised me had I had a vision.”

“We struck up a conversation, taking pains at first to give it an easy flow and sticking to the most frivolous topics. Did he, I asked, believe in predestination? He did. Did he believe that all men were doomed to die? Yes, he felt certain that all men would absolutely have to die, but he was less sure that all men had to be born...”

“Peter did not feel very brave; indeed, he felt he was going to be sick. But that made no difference to what he had to do.”

“I had drunk much wine and afterward coffee and Strega and I explained, winefully, how we did not do the things we wanted to do; we never did such things.”