“It's possible to overlook character flaws of in-laws for the simple reason that you feel neither responsible for them nor genetically implicated.”

“You can't possibly judge your ability to control something until you've experienced the extremes of its capabilities. Do you understand?”

“What an absolute folly love was. Talk about a flawed concept.”

“If you paid me for work," continued Max, whose rhetoric was more sophisticated than you might expect from a man with food in his beard, "I wouldn't have to feel worthless. There's not law says old people have to feel worthless all the while, you know. You paid me, I'd have some dignity."Now it was Mile's turn to nod and smile agreeably. "I think the dignity ship set sail a long time ago, Dad.”

“To his surprise he...discovered that it was possible to be good at what you had little interest in, just as it had been possible to be bad at something…that you cared about a great deal.”

“One of the odd things about middle age, he concluded, was the strange decisions a man discovers he's made by not really making them, like allowing friends to drift away through simple neglect.”

“What if all everybody needed in the world was to be sure of one friend? What if you were the one, and you refused to say those simple words?”