Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.

I have never lived before...Until this summer, I did not know what it was to be alive.

Accepting that we are angry is a healthy and appropriate response as long as we don't get stuck in it. Acknowledging it is one way of going through it.

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.

The shadows are deepening all around us. Now is the time when we must begin to see our world and ourselves in a different way.

I used to feel guilty about spending morning hours working on a book; about fleeing to the brook in the afternoon. It took several summers of being totally frazzled by September to make me realize that this was a false guilt. I'm much more use to family and friends when I'm not physically and spiritually depleted than when I spend my energies as though they were unlimited. They are not. The time at the typewriter and the time at the brook refresh me and put me into a more workable perspective.

The growth of love is not a straight line, but a series of hills and valleys.