I would like to think that one life is enough and that when I see it coming to an end I can meet the darkness with resignation and perhaps acceptance. I have been lucky. I came from nowhere, and had no reason to expect as much from this one life as I have got. I owe God a death, and the earth a pound or so of chemicals. Now let's see if I can remember that when the time comes.

— Wallace Stegner, The Geography of Hope by Page Stegner, editor, Mary Stegner, editor