Here are some quotes from The Human Comedy:

Taking a telegram to Chinatown or out to the sticks is liable to scare a fellow— well, don’t let it scare you. People are people. Don’t be scared of them.

Mr. Spangler, the manager of the telegraph office, gives this advice to Homer. Mr. Spangler is a model of decency and humanity.

But as long as we are alive,” she said, “as long as we are together, as long as two of us are left, and remember him, nothing in the world ran take him from us. His body can be taken, but not him. You shall know your father better as you grow and know yourself better.

Mrs. Macauley says this to her son, Ulysses, to explain that his father will always be with his children in their memories and minds, even though Mr. Macauley has died.

He didn’t dislike the woman or anybody else, but what was happening to her seemed so wrong and so full of ugliness that he was sick and didn’t know if he ever wanted to go on living again.

Homer feels physically ill when he has to deliver a telegram that tells a mother her son has died in the war. This experience is one that makes him lose some of his innocence about the world.

"Please help me up," the soldier said. "We’ll go into the house together." Homer Macauley leaned down to Tobey George, the orphan who had come home at last, and the soldier took the messenger
by the shoulders and slowly got to his feet.

At the end of the novel, Tobey George, Marcus Macauley's friend, comes to the Macauley house. He has replaced the dead Marcus and has finally arrived at a home he can call his own after growing up as an orphan.