“I close my eyes and suddenly remember something Nina had told me the night before my first day of middle school: If you're going somewhere where you feel like you might not belong, the only person you need to work to convince is yourself. Everyone else is easy.”

“You're good for me," I say. "The light to my shade.""Then you're the night to my day. A person needs both, you know.”

“No. You can't work your way into heaven. Anytime you try and justify yourself with works, you disqualify yourself with works. What I do here, every day, for the rest of my life, is only my way of saying, 'Lord, regardless of what eternity holds for me, let me give something back to you. I know it doesn't even no scorecard. But let me make something of my life before I go.. and then, Lord, I'm at your mercy.”

“I remembered something my first partner had told me. Never wrestle with a pig, Lindsay. You both get dirty. The pig likes it.”

“It is very easy to convince yourself that you have done something correctly if you never pay attention to what else you might have done in the first place. (Satomi from Picking Bones From Ash)”

“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.”