“If friendship were a matter of bookkeeping -- so much joy in one column, so much sorrow in the other -- everything would cancel out and you would, it seems, be left with nothing. Yet there must be another factor in the equation, for somehow the joy outweighs the sorrow.”

“I always read Jane Austen during wars. Her complete lack of interest in Napoleon's activities has a soothingly insulating effect.”

“I was so happy to be out of there. “Barabas, if you weren’t batting for the other team, I’d marry you.”He grinned. “If I weren’t batting for the other team, I would accept your proposal." You had me at ‘No comment.’ If all my clients were this smart, my life would be much easier. Much, much easier.”

“Life essentially seeks out balance.I have found that it is in the habit of trading one sorrow for one joy until one cancels out the other.”

“Balm of the summer night, balm of the ordinary,imperial joy and sorrow of human existence,the dreamed as well as the lived—what could be dearer than this, given the closeness of death?”

“We passed over in a sweep of sorrow that would persist into our small forever. We just keep going.”

“When you know that everything matters—that every move counts as much as any other—you will begin living a life of permanent purpose.”