When routine bites hard

"Right and wrong," he says and stops; his head shifts, and the stiff downward lines of his mouth and bad eye show. "Right and wrong aren't dropped from the sky. We. We make them. Against misery. Invariably, Harry, invariably" - he grows confident in his ability to negotiate long words - "misery follows their disobedience. Not our own, often at first not our own. Now you've had an example of that in your own life." Rabbit wonders when the tear-trails appeared on Tothero's cheeks; there they are, like snail tracks. "Do you believe me?"

~ John Updike. Rabbit, Run.