Lonesome Dove

by Larry McMurtry

Occasionally the very youngness of the young moved him to charity—they had no sense of the swiftness of life, nor of its limits.

The other men were easy to talk to, but they didn’t know anything. If one stopped to think about it, it was depressing how little most men learned in their lifetimes.

“You can’t avoid it, you’ve got to learn to handle it,” Augustus said. “If you only come face to face with your own mistakes once or twice in your life it’s bound to be extra painful. I face mine every day—that way they ain’t usually much worse than a dry shave.”