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.

She thought of the library, so shining white and new; the rows and rows of unread books; the bliss of unhurried sojourns there and of going out to a restaurant, alone, to eat.

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

Was life always like that? she wondered. A game of hide and seek in which you only occasionally found the person you wanted to be?

Betsy returned to her chair, took off her coat and hat, opened her book and forgot the world again.

One strain could call up the quivering expectancy of Christmas Eve, childhood, joy and sadness, the lonely wonder of a star

In silence the three of them looked at the sunset and thought about God.