When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch.

The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, "Use it well, use it wisely.

With all our horrors and faults, somewhere in us there is a shining.

Let's say that when I was a little baby, and all my bones soft and malleable, I was put in a small Episcopal cruciform box and so took my shape. Then, when I broke out of the box, the way a baby chick escapes an egg, is it strange that I had the shape of a cross? Have you ever noticed that chickens are roughly egg-shaped?

Sometimes when she was alone, and she knew she was alone, she permitted her mind to play in a garden, and she smiled.

A stilted heron labored up into the air and pounded down the river.