The goodness of the world grew like moss in cracks, she thought. It grew, somehow, with hidden roots, nourished by something unseen.

You're doing it again. Using reason to argue faith. Can't be done. Like playing croquet with a crochet hook. Sounds something like the right tool for the job, but isn't.

In the end, having no compass for his desires, he yielded to his nature.

Evil flourishes because the good aren't good enough, " see murmured. "And sometimes the good just have bad days.

I don't want the technology of the 1950s, but I want the free market of the 1950s.

Delicious days ahead for solitude and writing and, oh yes, the holiday meal with family. Live with my characters until term starts in 2012!

Hope is a settled state of mind, in which we see the world in its true light, and look forward to our final homecoming in heaven.

There's nothing you can do to see — it is a gift.

To starve a child of the spell of the story, of the canter of the poem, oral or written, is a kind of living burial. It is to immure him in emptiness.

A garden should be in a constant state of fluid change, expansion, experiment, adventure; above all it should be an inquisitive, loving, but self-critical journey on the part of its owner.

The Irish always jest even though they jest with tears.

Hormones were as potent as whiskey, and twice as sneaky.

The ship is going by a mighty engine, and you are busy rowing.

To be rich you have to know what it is to be poor. Getting financially literate is part of the price you have to pay to become rich