“There is always something particularly delightful about exceptions to a rule.”

“Cleanliness', chuckled Sir Benjamin, noting his great niece's delighted smile as her eyes rested upon him, 'comes next to godliness, eh, Maria?”

“She realized with deep respect that this woman had always done what she had to do and faced what she had to face. If many of her fears and burdens would have seemed unreal to another woman, there was nothing unreal about her courage.”

“Most of us tend to belittle all suffering except our own," said Mary. "I think it's fear. We don't want to come too near in case we're sucked in and have to share it.”

“Fairyland...Paradise...In this place and at this time, Marguerite could know that the one was a parable of the other and both were synonyms for something that had no name.”

“In times of storm and tempest, of indecision and desolation, a book already known and loved makes better reading than something new and untried ... nothing is so warming and companionable.”

“[I]f you believe in God omnipresent, then you must believe everything that comes into your life, person or event, must have something of God in it to be experienced and loved; not hated.”