“We stood-- the dead child and the living --on either side of my father, both wanting the same thing. To have him to ourselves forever. To please us both was an impossibility.”

“Above his bed the clock ticked off the minutes and I thought of the game Lindsey and I had played in the yard together: “he loves me/he loves me not” picked out on daisy’s petals. I could hear the clock casting my own two greatest wishes back to me in the same rhythm: “Die for me/don’t die for me, die for me/don’t die for me.” I could not help myself, it seemed, as I tore at his weakening heart. If he died, I would have him forever. Was this so wrong to want?We stood-the dead child and living-on either side of my father, both wanting the same thing. To have him to ourselves forever. To please us both was an impossibility.”

“Perrin, my father says a general can take care of the living or weep for the dead, but he cannot do both.”

“I’ve learned that courage and compassion are two sides of the same coin, and that every warrior, every humanitarian, every citizen is built to live with both.“In fact, to win a war, to create peace, to save a life, or just to live a good life requires of us — of every one of us — that we be both good and strong.”

“And finally this, when the sun was falling down so beautiful we didn’t have time to give it a name, she held the child born of white mother and red father and said,’ Both sides of this baby are beautiful’.”

“A son or daughter in any human family is either born to or adopted by the parents. By definition, a child can't be both. But with God we're both born of Him and adopted by Him.”