“You know how people say, Don't borrow trouble? Well, said Morgan, I guess it's the opposite of that. Doc is borrowing happiness.”

“Doc seemed to gather himself to say something important, and spoke as firmly as he could, though his voice was somewhere between a whisper and a whine. "Wyatt, I cannot make you another denture. No more fights. You get that mad again, shoot the bastard. Promise me.”

“Until you get the measure of your own soul, Jim, don't be quick to condemn a priest, or anyone else for that matter. I'm not scolding you, sweetheart," she said hurriedly. "It's just that, until you've been there, you can't know what it's like to hold yourself to promises you made in good faith a long time ago. Do you hang in there, or cut your losses? Soldier on, or admit defeat and try to make the best of things?" She'd looked a little sheepish then and admitted, "You know, I used to be a real hardass about stuff like this. No retreat, no surrender! But now? Jimmy, I honestly don't know if the world would be better or worse if we all held ourselves to the vows of our youth.”

“...Doc's idea of "clarifyin' a point of contention" came awful close to spitting in a man's eye.”

“They were quiet for a time, alone with their thoughts, but then John sat up straight, struck by a thought. "There's a passage in Exodus - God tells Moses, 'No one can see My face, but I will protect you with My hand until I have passed by you, and then I will remove My hand and you will see My back.' Remember that?" Emilio nodded, listening. Well I always thought that was a physical metaphor," John said, "but, you know - I wonder now if it isn't really about time? Maybe that was God's way of telling us that we can never know His intentions, but as time goes on...we'll understand. We'll see where He was: we'll see His back.”

“Home," he said softly. "If there is a more beautiful word in any language, I do not know it.”

“You know what I think? Ten percent of any group of human beings are shitheads. Catholics, Jews. Germans, Italians. Pilots, priests. Teachers, doctors, shopkeepers. Ten percent are shitheads. Another ten percent -- salt of the earth! Saints! Give you the shirts off their backs. Most people are in the middle, just trying to get by.”