“I read it: "A man earned daily for 5 days and 3 times as much as he paid for his board, after which he was obliged to be idle 4 days," it said. "Upon counting his money after paying for his board he found that he had 2 ten-doller bills and 4 dollers. How much did he pay for the board, and what were his wages?""All right. Think now," Weaver said. "How would you begin to solve it? What's your X?"I thought. Very hard. For quite some time. About the man and his meager wages and shabby boardinghouse and lonely life. "Where did he work?" I finally asked."What? It doesn't matter, Matt. Just assign an X to-""A mill, I bet," I said, picturing the man's threadbare clothing, his worn shoes. "A woolen mill. Why do you think he was obliged to be idle?""I don't know why. Look, just-""I bet he got sick," I said, clutching Weaver's arm. "Or maybe business wasn't good, and his boss had no work for him. I wonder if he had a family in the country. It would be a terrible thing, wouldn't it, if he had children to feed and no work? Maybe his wife was poorly, too. And I bet he had...""Damn it, Mattie, this is algebra, not composition!" Weaver said, glaring at me."Sorry," I said, feeling like a hopeless case.”

“[My grandfather] returned to what he called ‘studying.’ He sat looking down at his lap, his left hand idle on the chair arm, his right scratching his head, his white hair gleaming in the lamplight. I knew that when he was studying he was thinking, but I did not know what about. Now I have aged into knowledge of what he thought about. He thought of his strength and endurance when he was young, his merriment and joy, and how his life’s burdens had then grown upon him. He thought of that arc of country that centered upon Port William as he first had known it in the years just after the Civil War, and as it had changed, and as it had become; and how all that time, which would have seemed almost forever when he was a boy, now seemed hardly anytime at all. He thought of the people he remembered, now dead, and of those who had come and gone before his knowledge, and of those who would come after, and of his own place in that long procession.”

“(about William Blake)As for Blake's happiness--a man who knew him said: "If asked whether I ever knew among the intellectual, a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me."And yet this creative power in Blake did not come from ambition. ...He burned most of his own work. Because he said, "I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I want nothing whatever. I am quite happy."...He did not mind death in the least. He said that to him it was just like going into another room. On the day of his death he composed songs to his Maker and sang them for his wife to hear. Just before he died his countenance became fair, his eyes brightened and he burst into singing of the things he saw in heaven. ”

“When I asked him for some explanation as to why he wanted to kill me, he said it was because he didn't like his jobs. When I asked him since when had he not liked his jobs, he said since always. When I remarked that he had never told me this, and that I had gotten the impression that he had liked them, he said: "How is that possible? You know me. Do I strike you as stupid or boring?""No.""Then how could you think I would enjoy being an etiquette expert, or a Weight Watchers' counselor, or a stripper? How could you think that someone like me, with my mind, my character, would derive any satisfaction from those things?”

“Finally he smiled. "You had no idea," he said, "how much I've thought about you saying that." And then he did what I hadn't had the nerve to do. He pushed his hands in my hair, and kissed me.”

“What is the matter with you?" asked Shcherbatsky."Nothing much, but there is little to be happy about in this world.""Little? You'd better come with me to Paris instead of going to some Mulhausen or other. You'll see how jolly it will be!""No, I have done with that; it is time for me to die.""That is a fine thing!" said Shcherbatsky, laughing. "I am only just beginning to live.""Yes, I thought so too till lately; but now I know that I shall soon die."Levin was saying what of late he had really been thinking. He saw death and the apprroach of death in everything; but the work he had begun interested him all the more. After all, he had to live his life somehow, til death came. Everything for him was wrapped in darkness; but just because of the darkness, feeling his work to be the only thread to guide him through the darkness, he seized upon it and clung to it with all his might.”