“What makes human life--which is inseparable from this moment--so precious is its fleeting nature. And not that it doesn't last but that it never returns again.”

“We make allowance for a certain degree of selfishness in men; because we know it to be inseparable from human nature, and inherent in our frame and constitution. By this reflexion we correct those sentiments of blame, which so naturally arise upon any opposition.”

“Doesn't our knowledge of death make life more precious?'What good is a preciousness based on fear and anxiety? It's an anxious quivering thing”

“What makes coming home so jarring, compared to other returns from other exotic places—―isn't simply culture shock. It's human shock, seeing so many people again after dwelling in a place so empty of them.”

“So I learned two things that night, and the next day, from him: the perfection of a moment, and the fleeting nature of it.”

“It seems to me so shocking to see the precious hours of a man's life - the priceless moments that will never come back to him again - being wasted in a mere brutish sleep.”