“The world begins anew with every birth, my father used to say. He forgot to say, with every death it ends. Or did not think he needed to. Because for a goodly part of his life he worked in a graveyard.”

“The world is always ending for someone. It’s a good line. I give it to the father of the child. He says it to his wife. ‘The world is always ending for someone,’ he says. She is trying to quieten the baby, and does not hear him. I doubt that it would matter if she did.”

“Life is a disease, and death begins already at birth. Every breath, every heartbeat, is a moment of dying - a little shove toward the end.”

“Life is a disease, brother, and death begins already at birth. Every breath, every heartbeat, is a moment of dying - a little shove toward the end.”

“Let not death, nor the graveyard overcome you with fear, for every seed buried in its cold ground, resurrects forth anew, into a blossomed life.”

“Major Major's father had a good joke about opportunity. "Opportunity only knocks once in this world," he would say. Major Major's father repeated this good joke at every opportunity.”