“in the dark you have to describe yourself. In the daylight other people describe you.”

“The daylight schooled the senses and the night-time developed the wits, stretched the imagination, sharpened fantasy, hammered home the memory and altered the whole scale of values.”

“Mister God made everything, didn’t he?”There was no point in saying I didn’t really know. I said “Yes.”“Even the dirt and the stars and the animals and the people and the trees and everything, and the pollywogs?” The pollywogs were those little creatures we had seen under the microscope.I said, “Yes, he made everything.”She nodded her agreement. “Does Mister God love us truly?”“Sure thing,” I said. “Mister God loves everything.”“Oh,” she said. “well then, why does he let things get hurt and dead?” Her voice sounded as if she felt she had betrayed a sacred trust, but the question had been thought and it had to be spoken.“I don’t know,” I replied. “There’re a great many things about Mister God, we don’t know about?”“Well then,” she continued, “if we don’t know many things about Mister God, how do we know he loves us?”I could see this was going to be one of those times, but thank goodness she didn’t expect an answer to her question, for she hurried on: “Them pollywogs, I could love them till I bust, but they wouldn’t know, would they? I’m million times bigger than they are and Mister God is million times bigger than me, so how do I know what Mister God does?”She was silent for a little while. Later I thought that at this moment she was taking her last look at babyhood. Then she went on.“Fynn, Mister God doesn’t love us.” She hesitated. “He doesn’t really, you know, only people can love. I love Bossy, but Bossy don’t love me. I love the pollywogs, but they don’t love me. I love you Fynn, and you love me, don’t you?”I tightened my arm about her.“You love me because you are people. I love Mister God truly but he don’t love me.”It sounded to me like a death knell. “Damn and blast,” I thought. “Why does this have to happen to people? Now she’s lost everything.” But I was wrong.She had got both feet planted firmly on the next stepping stone.“No,” she went on, “no, he don’t love me, not like you do, its different, its millions of times bigger.”I must have made some movement or noise, for she levered herself upright and sat on her haunches and giggled. The she launched herself at me and undid my little pang of hurt, cut from the useless spark of jealousy with the delicate sureness of a surgeon.“Fynn, you can love better than any people that ever was, and so can I, cant I? But Mister God is different. You see, Fynn, people can only love outside, and can only kiss outside, but Mister God can love you right inside, and Mister God can kiss you right inside, so its different. Mister God ain’t like us; we are a little bit like Mister God, but not much yet.”It seemed to me to reduce itself to the fact that we were like God because of the similarities, but God was not like us because of our differences. Her inner fires had refined her ideas, and like some alchemist she had turned lead into gold. Gone were all the human definitions of God, like Goodness, Mercy, Love, and Justice, for these were merely props to describe the indescribable.“You see, Fynn, Mister God is different because he can finish things and we cant. I cant finish loving you because I shall be dead millions of years before I can finish, but Mister God can finish loving you, and so its not the same kind of love, is it?”

“Some people collect stamps or beer mats; Mum collected waifs and strays, cats, dogs, frogs, people, and as she believed, a whole host of "little people." Had she been confronted that night with a lion,she'd have made the same comment "The poor thing.”

“I was nineteen at the time, prowling the streets and alleys with my usual supply of hot dogs, the street lights with their foggy haloes showing dark, formless shapes moving out from the darkness of the fog and disappearing again. ”

“Anna had bypassed all the nonessentials and distilled centuries of learning into one sentence: "And God said love me, love them, and love it, and don't forget to love yourself." The whole business of adults going to church filled Anna with suspicion. The idea of collective worship went against her sense of private conversations withMister God. As for going to church to meet Mister God, that was preposterous. After all, if Mister God wasn't everywhere, he wasn't anywhere. For her, churchgoing and "Mister God" talks had no necessary connection. For her, the whole thing was transparently simple. You went to church to get the message whenyou were very little. Once you had got it, you went out and did something about it. Keeping on going to church was because you hadn't got the message or didn't understand it or it was "just for swank.”

“After it had all been explained to me, my first thought was for poor oldMohammed. He had to go to the mountains, but not Anna. She neither went to the mountains nor did she fetch the mountain to her she merely said "Scat." And they scatted. Mind you, although I knew by then that the mountains were not really there, and that I could move about freely and unhampered, there are occasions not many, I'm glad to say when I get the distinct feeling that I've been brought up pretty sharpish-like by a clunk on the head. It certainly feels as if I have walked into a mountain, even though I can't see it. Perhaps one day I shall be able to walk about freely, without ducking occasionally.As for my problem about the heres and the theres, the explanation went like this:"Where are you?" she had said. "Here, of course," I replied."Where's me then?""There!""Where do you know about me?" "Inside myself someplace.""Then you know my middle in your middle.""Yes, I suppose so.""Then you know Mister God in my middle in your middle, and everything you know,every person you know, you know in your middle. Every person and everything thatyou know has got Mister God in his middle, and so you have got his Mister God in your middle too. It's easy.”