“We are made most specifically by the things we cannot bear to do”

“That's when it happened. An understanding, a new realization, cameinto her head and triggered a transformation that was almost total. Maybe this was how all learnign worked in the end. The right kind ofoncentration deployed in the right way at the right time. If youpaid attention and sorted carefully, put things in the right place at the right tiem, it was possible to think yourself away from yourself, away from the things you could not do.”

“Most of us are called on to perform tasks far beyond what we can do. Our capabilities seldom match our aspirations, and we are often woefully unprepared. To this extent, we are all Assistant Pig-Keepers at heart.”

“Oh, when we are journeying through the murky night and the dark woods of affliction and sorrow, it is something to find here and there a spray broken, or a leafy stem bent down with the tread of His foot and the brush of His hand as He passed; and to remember that the path He trod He has hallowed, and thus to find lingering fragrance and hidden strength in the remembrance of Him as " in all points tempted like as we are," bearing grief for us, bearing grief with us, bearing grief like us.”

“If we need the protection of men, let us first ask it from God. If we prevail with Him, the power of the most mighty and of the most wicked must minister to our relief.”

“Which is how most people acted when it came to temptation. They gave in. And we should never forget, thought Isabel, that every one of us is capable of doing the same thing if the game that we see for ourselves is large enough.”

“We don't need to have just one favorite. We keep adding favorites. Our favorite book is always the book that speaks most directly to us at a particular stage in our lives. And our lives change. We have other favorites that give us what we most need at that particular time. But we never lose the old favorites. They're always with us. We just sort of accumulate them.”