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

I rebel against death, yet I know that it is how I respond to death's inevitability that is going to make me less or more fully alive.

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

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.

I wrote because I wanted to know what everything was about.

We do not know and cannot tell when the spirit is with us. Great talent or small, it makes no difference. We are caught within our own skins, our own sensibilities; we never know if our technique has been adequate to the vision.

If I have something I want to say that is too difficult for adults to swallow, then I will write it in a book for children.