“Excerpt:Here are some thoughts from Charlene the Star:“I’ll bet that’s why Mama put the word “Star” in myname. I have a feeling I’m going to be a star as a jumper.”

“When there's a star on a flag it stands for freedom. The star points in all directions, it means you can go anywhere you want. That's why I love stars, because they stand for freedom.”

“Thinking of the stars night after night I begin to realize 'The stars are words' and all the innumerable worlds in the Milky Way are words, and so is this world too. And I realize that no matter where I am, whether in a little room full of thought, or in this endless universe of stars and mountains, it’s all in my mind.”

“I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; Garlands from window to window; Golden chains from star to star ... And I dance.”

“Yes, I’ll be glad.” And she said suddenly, “There are some times, Joseph, when the love for people is strong and warm like a sorrow.”He looked quickly at her in astonishment at her statement of his own thought. “How did you think that, dear?”“I don’t know. Why?”“Because I was thinking it at that moment — and there are times when the people and the hills and the earth, all, everything except the stars, are one, and the love of them all is strong like a sadness.”“Not the stars, then?”“No, never the stars. The stars are always strangers — sometimes evil, but always strangers. Smell the sage, Elizabeth. It’s good to be getting home.”

“When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion, then I go out and paint the stars.”