“I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.”

“It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”

“Death is a personal matter, arousing sorrow, despair, fervor, or dry-hearted philosophy. Funerals, on the other hand, are social functions. Imagine going to a funeral without first polishing...”

“I learned to write nice as hell. Birds an' stuff like that, too; not just word writin'. My ol' man'll be sore when he sees me whip out a bird in one stroke. Pa's gonna be mad when he sees me...”

“There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do.”

“Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create - this is man.”

“Don't you love Jesus?' Well, I thought an' I thought an' finally I says, 'No, I don't know nobody name' Jesus. I know a bunch of stories, but I only love people.”

“And now they were weary and frightened because they had gone against a system they did not understand and it had beaten them. They knew that the team and the wagon were worth much more. They...”