What could the old man say about all those people born with more courage than they could find a way to spend and then there was nothing to do with it but just get by?

And the old man did look as though every blessing he had forgotten to hope for had descended on him all at once, for the time being.

He was happier than he wanted her to see, relieved even though he knew it was too soon to trust that they were safe yet, and worried that he was too ready to be happy and relieved. After breakfast he set a little glass bowl on the porch railing to catch some snow as it fell, and when he saw it had stopped falling, he took the bowl out to the rosebushes to pluck snow that had caught in the brambles. He brought it inside and set it on the windowsill so the sun would melt it. It was pretty the way the light made kind of a little flame, floating in the middle of the water, burning away in there cold as could be. It was for christening the child, she knew without asking. If the child came struggling into the world, that water would be ready for him. If it had to be his only blessing, then it would be a pure and lovely blessing. That was the old man getting ready to make the best of the worst that could happen. Not my will but thine. In his sermons he was always reminding himself of that prayer.

You are right not to talk. It's a sort of higher honesty, I think. Once you start talking, there's no telling what you'll say (p. 20).

Clean an acceptable. It would be something to know what that felt like, even for an hour or two (p. 67)