“Before you begin a thing, remind yourself that difficulties and delays quite impossible to foresee are ahead. If you could see them clearly, naturally you could do a great deal to get rid of them but you can't. You can only see one thing clearly and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that and cling to it through thick and thin.”

“One of the advantages of laws is that you can follow them blind, when you have lost all your moorings. You can't follow your instincts, but you can remember your rule.”

“The very nature of marriage means saying yes before you know what it will cost. Though you may say the “I do” of the wedding ritual in all sincerity, it is the testing of that vow over time that makes you married.”

“Only Christ could have brought us all together, in this place, doing such absurd but necessary things.”

“When you come to a place where you have to left or right,' says Sister Ruth, 'go straight ahead.”

“My goal is to allow readers their own experience of whatever discovery I have made, so that it feels new to them, but also familiar, in that it is a piece with their own experience. It is a form of serious play.”

“Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine.”