Because, once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise. Loneliness is an absolute discovery.

It is possible to know the great truths without feeling the truth of them.

Nothing true can be said about God from a posture of defense.

People don't acknowledge loneliness in themselves, and don't appreciate its benefits, the reflection and attentiveness that come with it, the deepened acquaintance with oneself.

I hated waiting. If I had one particular complaint, it was that my life seemed composed entirely of expectation. I expected — an arrival, an explanation, an apology. There had never been one, a fact I could have accepted, were it not true that, just when I had got used to the limits and dimensions of one moment, I was expelled into the next and made to wonder again if any shapes hid in its shadows.

Salvation was universally considered to be much more becoming in women than in men.

Weary or bitter of bewildered as we may be, God is faithful. He lets us wander so we will know what it means to come home.