Because of course she had known she must go. She always did the thing because in obedience lay the integrity that God asked of her. If anyone had asked her what she meant by integrity she would not have been able to tell them but she had seen it once like a picture in her mind, a root going down into the earth and drinking deeply there. No one was really alive without that root.

The lovers of life, they are children at heart always in their wonder and delight, but they do not grab.

She realized with deep respect that this woman had always done what she had to do and faced what she had to face. If many of her fears and burdens would have seemed unreal to another woman, there was nothing unreal about her courage.

The child in us is always there, you know, and it's the best part of us, the winged part that travels farthest.

autumn days have a holiness that spring lacks ... They are like old serene saints for whom death has lost its terror.

In a world where thrushes sing and willow trees are golden in the spring, boredom should have been included among the seven deadly sins.

This modern craze for putting the young in positions of authority - headmasters in their thirties, bishops without a gray hair on their heads, generals who scarcely need to use a razor - ever since it took hold the world's gone steadily downhill.