You have two numbers in your age when you are ten. It's the beginning of growing up.

The wastes of snow on the hill were ghostly in the moonlight. The stars were piercingly bright.

The most important part of religion isn't in any church. It's down in your own heart. Religion is in your thoughts, and in the way you act from day to day, in the way you treat other people. It's honesty, and unselfishness, and kindness. Especially kindness.

It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.

Come in early, so there'll be time to pop corn,' Mrs. Ray said. If she mentioned popping corn, they always came in early. So she usually mentioned it.

When there are boys you have to worry about how you look, and whether they like you, and why they like another girl better, and whether they're going to ask you to something or other. It's a strain.

Good things come, but they're never perfect; are they? You have to twist them into something perfect.