“Ma – You scared a goin’ to a new place?”

Her eyes grew thoughtful and soft. “A little,” she said. “Only it ain’t like scared so much. I’m jus’ a settin’ here waitin’. When somepin happens that I got to do somepin – I’ll do it.”

“Ain’t you thinkin’ what’s it gonna be like when we get there? Ain’t you scared it won’t be nice like we thought?’

“No,” she said quickly. “No, I ain’t. You can’t do that. I can’t do that . It’s too much – livin’ too many lives. Up ahead they’s a thousan’ lives we might live, but when it comes, it’ll only be one. If I go ahead on all of em, it’s too much. You got to live ahead ‘cause you’re so young, but – it’s jus’ the road goin’ by for me.”

John Steinbeck’s Ma and Tom in the Grapes of Wrath.