I went to Sunday School and liked the stories about Christ and the Christmas star. They were beautiful. They made you warm and happy to think about. But I didn't believe them.

I couldn't get that same feeling during the day, with my hands in dirty dish water and the hard sun showing up the dirtiness on the roof tops. And after a time, even at night, the feeling of God didn't last.

If you get old fashioned enough, you'll always be in style.

I have learned that to have a good friend is the purest of all God's gifts, for it is a love that has no exchange of payment.

But I was sure of one thing. If God were a father, with children, that cleanliness I had been feeling wasn't God.

I just knew that God wasn't there. He was a man on a throne in Heaven, so he was easy to forget.

I used to lie between cool, clean sheets at night after I'd had a bath, after I had washed my hair and scrubbed my knuckles and finger-nails and teeth. Then I could lie quite still in the dark with my face to the window with the trees in it, and talk to God.