“What could a child know of the darkness of God's plan? Or how flesh is so frail it is hardly more than a dream”

“He didn’t know how one’s flesh prickled when fear took hold. He didn’t understand what it was like to gaze into the future and know that it would be nothing more than a dark and lonely place.”

“Did life really matter? Could hopes and dreams and plans and life end so quickly, so terribly? She looked at the sky. Was anything there besides stars? What did it all mean? What was God? Who was God?”

“How could God be so cruel as to create a Muslim woman with so much flesh and so little sex appeal?”

“A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is, any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.”

“Books, to the reading child, are so much more than books -- they are dreams and knowledge, they are a future and a past.”