One day you're racing about the business of life, harried but vital, a part of its machinery. Then gradually but inexorably you are left out, until one day you find the machinery tearing along without you - and nobody even notices.

What feeling in all the world is so nice as that of a child's hand in yours? It is soft. It is small and warm. It is as innocent and guileless as a rabbit or a puppy or a kitten huddling in the shelter of your clasp.

Young women especially have something invested in being nice people, and it's only when you have children that you realize you're not a nice person at all, but generally a selfish bully.

Death is the perfect knowing.

One day you're racing about the business of life, harried but vital, a part of its machinery. Then gradually but inexorably you are left out, until one day you find the machinery tearing along without you - and nobody even notices.

A child's hand in yours - what tenderness and power it arouses. You are instantly the very touchstone of wisdom and strength.

some people seem to graze like sheep in the placid pastures of their faith. Some of them were born there and never broke away ... Others, after some wandering, found shelter there and are quiet and content. They look with a bland mystification at the mavericks.