“Fritz was melancholic by nature, and could tolerate his own gloom. I do not think this is so with you, who are sanguine and impatient. In your case, remorse and despondency could be crippling.”

“Having achieved what I thought was an ultimate ambition, I found, as I think is often the case, that there remained something more.”

“I think before I act---and then think again. I am not entirely a coward, but I do not lose myself in action as you do.”

“I wanted to ask which war---the Boer or the Crimean? It was amazing how old people could talk about The War, as though that meant something.”

“The end comes to all of us...but the end comes quicker to those who do not live their lives as they choose. If your life is not your own, then in what way is it living?”

“I was remembering the things we had done together, the times we had had. It would have been pleasant to preserve that comradeship in the days that came after. Pleasant, but alas, impossible. That which had brought us together had gone, and now our paths diverged, according to our natures and needs. We would meet again, from time to time, but always a little more as strangers; until perhaps at last, as old men with only memories left, we could sit together and try to share them.”

“The bat was looking at Theo and Theo was having trouble following his own thoughts.The bat was wearing tiny sunglasses.Ray Bans,Theo could see by the trademark in the corner of one lens."I'm sorry, Mr.,uh- Case, could you take the bat off your head.It's very distracting."Him."Pardon?"It's a him.Roberto.He no like the light.”