“What mattered to her was that she loved God, whether or not He granted her the consolation and joy of His felt presence.”

“He wondered whether he really liked his mother. But she was his mother and this fact was recognized by everybody as meaning automatically that he loved her, and so he took for granted that whatever he felt for her was love. He did not know whether there was any reason why he should respect her judgment. She was his mother; this was supposed to take the place of reasons.”

“To commit herself to becoming "an apostle of Joy" when humanly speaking she might have felt at the brink of despair, was heroic indeed. She could do so because her joy was rooted in the certitude of the ultimate goodness of God's loving plan for her. And though her faith in this truth did not touch her soul with consolation, she ventured to meet the challenges of life with a smile. Her one lever was her blind trust in God.”

“Whether he loved her or not didn't change how she felt about him. She loved him independent and regardless of whether he loved her.”

“She wondered whether the books she loved consoled her precisely because they were the manifestations of her own isolation.”

“It was only then that she realized, that she remembered, what the true danger in this was. Only then that she understood what Gabriel had meant by his warnings.Because she could feel what he felt. And along with the gratitude, the sheer satisfaction and relief, were other emotions. Appreciation, joy, wonder, and-oh, dear God, love....Gabriel loved her.”