“...and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse–hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.”

“Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse--hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.”

“Later he had seen the things that he could never think of and later still he had seen much worse.”

“He doesn’t know to want for more because nothing in his life has been as much as this...on that night he thinks that no one has ever had so much and only later will he know he should have asked for more.”

“The thing about living with a death sentence for so long is you tend to miss the moment life starts to get better because you're so ready for it to get much, much worse.”

“Of course,' I said, 'you know her so much better than I ever did.'In some ways,' he said gloomily, and I knew he was thinking of the very ways in which I had known her the best.”