I know writers who write only when inspiration comes. How would Isaac Stern play if he played the violin only when he felt like it? He would be lousy.

Sometimes when we have to speak suddenly we come closer to the truth than when we have time to think.

It might be a good idea if, like the White Queen, we practiced believing six impossible things every morning before breakfast, for we are called on to believe what to many people is impossible. Instead of rejoicing in this glorious "impossible" which gives meaning and dignity to our lives, we try to domesticate God, to make his might actions comprehensible to our finite minds.

Meg, don't you think you'd make a better adjustment to life if you faced facts?" I do face facts," Meg said. They're lots easier to face than people, I can tell you.

There is no way that you can read the entire Bible seriously and take every word literally. Contradictions start in the first chapter of Genesis. There are two Creation stories, two stories of the making of Adam and Eve. And that is all right. The Bible is still true.

To create a work of art, great or small, is work, hard work, and work requires discipline and order.

I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly.