- Ed Myers: [narrating after fight with Hemingway] Physical pain is nothing compared to the pain of a lost bond.
- [last lines]
- Ed Myers: [narrating] Papa committed suicide with a shotgun at his home in Ketchum, Idaho 18 months later. July 2nd, 1961. There was no suicide note since Papa could no longer write. After it all, I guess what he really wanted was to have true love. He once wrote, "A man alone ain't got no chance."
- [first lines]
- Ed Myers: [narrating] In the way of things, fathers are by tradition in compassion supposed to leave their sons at least a little legacy of wisdom to help them get through life. But I don't remember my father ever saying anything memorable. Except those seven words he said that Christmas season, when I was four years old.
- Ed's Father: Wait here, son. I'll be right back...
- Ed Myers: I grew up an orphan, like many other children abandoned during the Depression.