“I was brooding, boy. Than which there is no richer pastime. It muffles one with rotting plumes. It gives forth sullen music. It is the smell of home.”

“The best pastimes for a true enjoyer of leisure who has to stay at home . . .: reading by the fireside. . . . Listening to music.”

“That which we give makes us richer, that which is hoarded is lost”

“This is what happened when one left one's home - pieces of oneself scattered all over the world, no one place ever completely satisfied, always a nostalgia for the place left behind. Pieces of her in Vietnam, some in this place of bone. She brought the letter to her nose. The smell of Vietnam: a mix of jungle and wetness and spices and rot. A smell she hadn't realized she missed.”

“One still works, for work is a pastime. But one is careful lest the pastime should hurt one.”

“The muffled syllables that Nature speaksFill us with deeper longing for her word; She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks,She makes a sweeter music than is heard.”