After that [father's death] I never cried with any real conviction, nor expected much of anyone's God except indifference, nor loved deeply without fear that it would cost me dearly in pain. At the age of five I had become a skeptic and began to sense that any happiness that came my way might be the prelude to some grim cosmic joke.

Meaning: Earthly possessions lose their comparative importance in the imagined final judgment. Money and a small amount of hay are placed on the same level.

Meaning: A hopeful or generous expectation can shape how someone approaches a situation. The proverb links belief with a favourable result, but its useful reading treats that link as encouragement rather than a guarantee that thoughts control events.

Meaning: The timing of death cannot be treated as an appointment people can count on controlling. The calendar image expresses uncertainty about life’s duration, encouraging awareness of limits without making a prediction about any individual or demanding constant urgency.

Meaning: Death is imagined as unable to hear objections, so a protest cannot make it negotiate. The saying expresses mortality’s finality rather than a judgment about how someone should feel about loss.