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.

If she could give love to IT perhaps it would shrivel up and die, for she was sure that IT could not withstand love.

Anything that's natural can't be sinful-it may be inconvenient, but it's not sinful.

Refusing to accept God's love because we're unworthy - of course we're unworthy! - is another golden calf.

We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes...

Dare I? Of course I don't. But I'm going to anyhow because I have no choice.

It's a very American trait, this wanting people to think well of us. It's a young want, and I am ashamed of it in myself. I am not always a good daughter, even though my lacks are in areas different from her complaints. Haven't I learned yet that the desire to be perfect is always disastrous and, at the least, loses me in the mire of false guilt?