"Just because it's a little town way out in the desert doesn't make the people meaner or dumber than anywhere else. They'll believe the truth when they hear it just as fast as anybody else. And if you think they envy you being a dude from the city you're wrong about that, too. They like it where they live, that's why they live there." p. 34
"...the Count had restricted himself to two succinct pieces of parental advice. The first was that if one did not master one's circumstances, one was bound to be mastered by them; and the second was Montaigne's maxim that the surest sign of wisdom is constant cheerfulness." p. 419 "...he was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds...Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate, and our opinions evolve--if not glacially, then at least gradually. Such that the events of an average day are as likely to transform who we are as a pinch of pepper is to transform a stew." p. 402 "For his part, the Count had opted for the life of the purposefully unrushed. Not only was he disinclined to race toward some appointed hour--disdaining even to wear a watch--he took the greatest satisfaction when assuring a friend that a worldly matter could wait in favor of a leisurely lunch or a stroll along the embankment.....
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