“As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.”

“If you have to go away,' she said,'is it absolutely necessary to kill off everything you leave behind? I mean do you have to take away everything? ...”

“I had already seen the end of fall come through boyhood, youth and young manhood, and in one place you could write about it better than in another. That was called transplanting yourself, I thought, and it could be as necessary with people as with other sorts of growing things.”

“It's harder to write in the third person but the advantage is you move around better.”

“Where did you wash? the boy thought. The village water supply was two streets down the road. I must have water here for him, the boy thought, and soap and a good towel. Why am I so thoughtless? I must get him another shirt and a jacket for the winter and some sort of shoes and another blanket.”

“Pamplona is changed, of course, but not as much as we are older. I found that if you took a drink that it got very much the same as it always was.”

“If you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life. A good life is not measured by any biblical span.”