What memorable lines/quotes stood out for you?

"Laughter is good for the soul and all your interior works." This is one memorable quote from News of the World. What other lines stood out for you?

On page 121, Captain Kidd was trying to slow down his mind by thinking of his time as courier, a runner, and his family. He thought to himself, "Maybe we just have one message, and it is delivered to us when we are born and we are never sure what it says; it may have nothing to do with us personally but it must be carried by hand through a life, all the way, and at the end handed over, sealed." Interesting.

I liked his message at Johanna's wedding when he gave her his watch.
"Time seems to have been sweeping ahead very fast these last years. How many years I worried about you and also delighted in your company. And now it is time for me to give you away."
The quote shows how deeply he cared about Johanna.

When he is injured during the war on page 21, he reminisces that "He had heard that song all his life and now he knew what it meant." That has happened to me a couple of times in my life, and they were both rather sad, contemplative times. Interestingly one of the songs was one that I thought was dumb when I was a teenager, and I could never change the channel on my car radio fast enough. A couple of decades later, the song came on an "oldies" station as I was mulling over big changes in life - and the lightbulb went on in my head. It was sombering to be able to relate to that song after all.

YES to all of the above quotes. And the poetry! "The road was open before them, a two-track stretch in the pale of the moon, rolling over the lifts and falls of the prairie country of central Texas. They passed a farmhouse set back among trees. The farm buildings appeared to be great dozing animals that had gathered near the house in the night". Just one of many lovely examples of the poetic movement of the story that holds us in thrall.

Not sure why, but I love this:
"Here had been people whose dearest memories were the sound of a dipper dropped in the water bucket after taking a drink and the click of it as it hit bottom."
Maybe because water is so elemental, so important to our being, and after a long, hot day of work in Texas, surely a drink of cold water must be a truly wonderful thing.

So simple but beautiful - "How they swung the bucket by the handle as they went at an easy walk down the path between the trees, between here and there, between babyhood and adulthood, between innocence and death, that worn path and the lifting of the heart as the horses called out to you, how you knew each by the sound of its voice in the long cool evening after a day of hard work."

I loved the first description of Johanna on page 4 where it says that her face "had no more expression than an egg." When I read that I knew I would really enjoy the novel!

I agree with Gloria about the dipper: "Here had been people whose dearest memories were the sound of a dipper dropped in the water bucket after taking a drink and the click of it as it hit bottom." At my great grandparents house we drew the well water up in a bucket, poured it into an enamel bucket and took it into the kitchen. We drank the water out of the bucket with a metal dipper. Such lovely memories. There was a lot of nostalgia in this book.

P.74
But now it was different and he was drawn back into the stream of being because there was once again a life in his hands.

Upon more reflection, I went back and looked at the very end of chapter 14 (page 140): "Cultures were mine fields." They definitely can be, particularly if tourists head off expecting everything to be like it is at home, thinking that your way is the right one, and expecting everyone to know your language.

I loved the lines mentioned above, but another that I loved was when Johanna broke out with the Kiowa triumph chant. It showed how deeply she identified with the Kiowa and their ways and how she showed happiness. It was on page 118: "Hey hey hey! My enemies have been sent to the otherworld, they have been sent to the place that is dark blue, where there is no water, hey hey hey! Coiguu Khoe-duuey! We are hard and strong, the Kiowa!" And then on page 120, the Captain repeats the "hey hey hey" to himself to calm down after the fight because he knows he needs to for Johanna. It was a beautiful moment of him embracing her ways and meeting her in between the two worlds.

There were many great quotes from this book! Part of this one was already mentioned, and I have to agree...it was one of my favorites:
"Maybe life is just carrying the news. Surviving to carry the news. Maybe we just have one message, and it is delivered to us when we are born and we are never sure what it says; it may have nothing to do with us personally but it must be carried by a hand through a life, all the way, and at the end handed over, sealed."
I think this really captured Captain's philosophy and the overall theme of the book.

The one I giggled over, remember and really liked was "The Ten-cent Shootout".