“What an embarrassment that was, being somewhere because there was nowhere else for you to be.”

“When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation?”

“You see how it is godlike to love the being of someone. Your existence is a delight to us. I hope you never have to long for a child as I did, but oh, what a splendid thing it has been that you came finally, and what a blessing to enjoy you now for almost seven years.”

“But I believe also the rewards of obedience are great, because at the root of real honor is always a sense of the sacredness of the person who is the object... When you love someone to the degree you love her, you see her as God sees her, and that is an instruction in the nature of God and humankind and of Being itself.”

“She closed one eye and looked at me and said, "I know there is a blessing in this somewhere.”

“I don't know exactly what covetous is, but in my experience it is not so much desiring someone else's virtue or happiness as rejecting it, taking offense at the beauty of it.”

“Love is holy because it is like grace--the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.”