“The world of any moment is the merest appearance. Some great decorum, some fetish of government, some ephemeral trade, or war, or man, is cried up by half mankind and cried down by the other half, as if it all depended on this particular up or down.”

“THE CAUSE of the great War of the Rebellion against the United Status will have to be attributed to slavery. For some years before the war began it was a trite saying among some politicians that "A state half slave and half free cannot exist." All must become slave or all free, or the state will go down. I took no part myself in any such view of the case at the time, but since the war is over, reviewing the whole question, I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true.”

“...some men say get them crying on your shoulder and you have the sheets half-unfurled already. Other fellows say get them laughing. I say get them drunk. I ordered up more Riesling...”

“She put her head down on the table and cried all the tears that she knew she should have cried in the past year and a half. But they weren't ready then, they were now.”

“The world is a staircase," hissed the accordion maker in the darkness. "Some go up and some come down. We must ascend.”

“We are all on the stairs, my friend; some of us are going down, some us are going up!”