“I can see myself now, she said. And I can see what I want to be, ten years from now. But I don't understand how I'm going to get from here to there.”

“She's not like anyone I've ever seen before. When I'm not with her, I want to be. And when she opens the book and I see her face, I can barely remember what I'm supposed to say, much less how to speak at all." I test the words on my tongue. "I think I might be in love with her. But how can I really know, since the only love I've ever experienced was written for me?”

“You know how I get angry sometimes? That's because it's the only way I can still feel. And I need to test myself, to make sure I'm really here.”

“Can you see the pond?"From up here, I can. It is a piece of sky, lying on the ground. When Heaven breaks, who fixes it?”

“Everything you said, Ellie, it's true. I should be very angry. I was, for a time, but now I'm not. Now I've gotten past my own selfishness to where I've got to help her. See, when you're Plain, you don't put yourself forward. You just don't do it, because that would be Hochmut–puffing yourself up–and the truth is there's always others more important than you. So Katie, when she hears others telling lies about her and this baby, she won’t want to fight back, or stand up for herself. I am here to stand up for her.”

“You know how I see it? There's always going to be bad stuff out there. But here's the amazing thing--light trumps darkness, every time. You stick a candle into the dark, but you can't stick the dark into the light...I guess from my point of view, we can choose to be in the dark, or we can light a candle. And for me, Christ is that candle.”

“So you see, the real question isn't how I left this world to go to the woods.It's how I made myself come back.”