“I've been accused of trying too hard to rescue people”

“He could hardly imagine anymore what his life would be without the weight of his hidden knowledge. He'd come to think of it as a kind of penance. It was self-destructive, he could see that, but that was the way things were. People smoked, they jumped out of airplanes, they drank too much and got into their cars and drove without seat belts.”

“Then she had been a fiancee, a young wife, and a mother, and she had discovered that these words were far too small ever to contain the experience.”

“The challenges in this place are real and sometimes very difficult, but I've learned to slow down and look for beauty in my days, for the mysteries and blessings woven into everything, into the very words we speak.”

“Think of it, Dad. What if I have it in me to do that, and I don't try?”

“This is what he knew that Paul didn't: the world was precarious and sometimes cruel. He'd had to fight hard to achieve what Paul simply took for granted.”

“Once, this whole world had been hidden beneath a shallow sea.”