“Even if there were only two men left in the world and both of them saints they wouldn't be happy. One them would be bound to try and improve the other. That is the nature of things.”

“You may think it odd that there were three men to look after one tiny station, but the people who ran the railway knew that if you left two men together in a lonely place they would quarrel, but if you left three men, two of them could always grumble to each other about the third, and then they would be quite happy.”

“The two are now bound inextricably. Should one die, the other will follow. No wepon in this world can wound only one of them”

“One had known the care of other men from his earliest years, a part of the duty of his birthright; the other had come to it later, but both felt that burden to be the will of God, she had no doubt at all-both accepted that duty without question, would honor it, or die in trying. She only hoped it wouldn't come to that-for either of them.”

“And Lukas would tell them to be good to each other, that there were only so many of them left, and that all the books and all the stars in the universe were pointless with no one to read them, no one to peer through the parting clouds for them.”

“Whenever one does extraordinary things, someone is bound to try to repeat them for themselves. It's the way of the world.”