A real Christmas baby was not to be lightly named.

Why is it that the people with whom one loves to be silent are also the very ones with whom one loves to talk?

There is a kind of magicness about going far away and then coming back all changed.

The old stage coach was rumbling along the dusty road that runs from Maplewood to Riverboro. The day was as warm as midsummer, though it was only the middle of May, and Mr. Jeremiah Cobb was favoring the horses as much as possible, yet never losing sight of the fact that he carried the mail. The hills were many, and the reins lay loosely in his hands as he lolled back in his seat and extended one foot and leg luxuriously over the dashboard. His brimmed hat of worn felt was well pulled over his eyes, and revolved a quid of tobacco in his left cheek.

To let blessed babies go dangling and dawdling without names, for months and months, was enough to ruin them for life.

If I haven't anything to write, I am just as anxious to 'take my pen in hand' as though I had a message to deliver, a cause to plead, or a problem to unfold. Nothing but writing rests me; only then do I seem completely myself!

you can never prove God; you can only find Him!