“As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.”

“(…)man holds the remedy in his own hands, and lets everything go its own way, simply through cowardice- that is an axiom.”

“But it’s there in his face, a fleeting reluctance that matches her own. They stand there together for a long time, for too long, for what seems like forever, each unwilling to part ways, letting the people behind them stream past like a river around rocks. Page: 91”

“...Meg learned to love her husband better for his poverty, because it seem to have made a man of him, giving him the strength and courage to fight his own way, and taught him a tender patience with which to bear and comfort the natural longings and failures of those he loved.”

“What on earth would a man do with himself, if something did not stand in his way?”

“There is no telling what a human character is. Until the test comes. To most of us the test comes early in life. A man is confronted quite soon with the necessity to stand on his own feet, to face dangers and difficulties and to take his own line of dealing with them. It may be the straight way, it may be the crooked way --- whichever it is, a man usually learns early just what he is made of.”