“Visiting the sick' is an orgasm of superiority in the contemplation of our neighbor's helplessness”

“Superior people never make long visits.”

“Who in their right mind counts the tiles on the floor when they go visiting a neighbor?”

“Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.”

“We visit...a neighboring grave-yard. I am by this time in a condition of mind to become a willing inmate of the place.”

“I do not myself think there is any superior rationality in being unhappy. The wise man will be as happy as circumstances permit, and if he finds contemplation of the universe painful beyond a point, he will contemplate something else instead.”