“The secret of seeing is, then the pearl of great price. If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all. But although the pearl may be found, it may not be sought. The literature of illumination reveals this above all: although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, a gift and a total surprise. I return from one walk knowing where the killdeer nests in the field by the creek and the hour the laurel blooms. I return form the same walk a day later scarcely knowing my own name. Litanies hum in my ears; my tongue flaps in my mouth. Ailinon, alleluia!”

“And please return it. You may think this a strange request, but I find that although my friends are poor arithmeticians, they are nearly all of them good bookkeepers.”

“If a king owned a pearl without price, a gem he cherished above all. Would he hide it away, bury it from sight afraid others would take it? Or would he display it proudly, set it in a ring or crown, so that all the world could behold its beauty and see what richness it brings to his life? You are my pearl without price.”

“I began to feel again something that I had been only dimly aware of before. It was a small, surprising sense of disappointment even as he was kissing me, but the violins were so loud at the time I could hear nothing else. Now the disappointment was returning and with it the realization that the magic had come only from the moment, not from him. It was different with you. In the eyes and ears of my heart, you and the magic are one and the same. The setting never mattered. On the sidewalk in front of my house, at the enchanted place in the desert, walking the halls at school- where I was with you, I heard violins.”

“When asked why I am single, my reply is simply; I consider myself a black pearl rare in my authenticity, adding a mysterious beauty to the select few who can recognize & even fewer who appreciate my worth. So instead of dating, I throw myself into working in the field. If my Boaz recognizes me amongst the black rocks...great! If not, the magnificence of my rarity will simply radiate onto those working the fields as well in the form of teaching, which is what I do.”

“Inside me, there is an organ more important than my heart. Although you can't see it, I feel it going right through my head and down to my legs, and I know that it exists inside me. It's the one that lets me stand up and walk forward. So that I can walk forward, without ever trembling. If I stopped here I feel like it would break...My soul would break. Even more than if my heart stops beating, to me that is the most important. Even if I become senile and my back gets bent, I still have to walk forward.”