“You have tasted of death now,” said the old man. “Is it good?” “It is good,” said Mossy. “It is better than life.”“No,” said the old man: “it is only more life.”

“He's a good man," Ranger said."And you?" "I'm better.”

“Isak Dinesen said that life is no more than a process for turning healthy young puppies into mangy old dogs and man but an exquisite instrument for converting the red wine of Shiraz into urine.”

“we wish you everything you wish yourself' Jurgen said.'What do you wish yourself?' Birgit asked.I felt silly 'I don't really have any specific wishes''a new old man perhaps?' Juliet said playfully'but please, not just any old man!' I said.'of course not just any old man! The man with whom it'll all be different.”

“You need to surrender to some such ultimate purpose more fully, more unreservedly than you had ever done in the old familiar, peaceful days, in the old life that was now abolished and gone for good.”

“I don't want this life to end," said Alexander. "The good, the bad, the everything, the very old, to ever end.”