“Sometimes life takes hold of one, carries the body along, accomplishes one's history, and yet is not real, but leaves oneself as it were slurred over.”

“Happiness does not lie in amusement; it would be strange if one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in order to amuse oneself”

“Real faith is holding blessings in one hand and suffering in the other, and trusting God to use both to accomplish His will.”

“Sometimes life seems like a match between oneself and one's gaolors. The gaolers, of course, are one's mistakes; and the question is, who'll hold out longest? When I think of that, life instead of being too long, seems as short as a winter day....”

“Since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection. Yet they were accomplished, somehow, all the same.”

“The heart is a river. The act of writing is the moving water that holds the banks apart, keeps the muscle of words flexing so that the reader can be carried along by this movement. To be given space and the chance to leave one's earthly world. Is there any greater freedom than this?”