我们人生中拥有的美好事物充其量是临时贷款，并且可以立即从我们身上带走。福利与灾难之间的边界，宽容与贫穷之间的边界，热情的壁炉和孤独的冷室之间的边界是一个狭窄的境界。我们可以随时从一个到另一个，就像我们跌跌撞撞或跌倒时一样，或者只是走到另一侧，因为我们对自己的位置不足。
(good things that we have in life are on temporary loan, at best, and can be taken away from us in an instant. The borderline between good fortune and disaster, between plenitude and paucity, between the warm hearth of love and the cold chamber of loneliness, was a narrow one. We could cross over from one to the other at any moment, as when we stumbled or fell, or simply walked over to the other side because we were paying insufficient attention to where we were.)