He himself has thinned out to the vanishing point of being only decisions once made that he can't do anything about ever after. - Norman Maclean

Mio padre possedeva sicurezze incrollabili su certe faccende inerenti all'universo. Per lui, tutte le cose buone – dalle trote alla salute eterna – derivavano dalla grazia, e la grazia dall'arte, e l'arte non è una cosa facile.

At the time I did not know that stories of life are often more like rivers than books.

I had long ago learned, sometimes to my sorrow, that Scottish piety is accompanied by a complete foreknowledge of sin. That's what we mean by original sin — we don't have to do it to know about it.