“Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.”

“I realized then how much alike we were. Both of us looked backwards to a beloved time that was lost to us, a time where everything had been beautiful. Both of us looked forward to some time and place that would be better. And both of us were here, now, in a grim, unhappy time where little was as we wanted it to be. We lived in our memories and in our hopes, enduring the present because we had no other choice, and because we loved the people who lived here with us.”

“I silently prayed, not caring that God had apparently forsaken us, that we would all make it to the base and that someday we would be able to live the lives that we had always wanted to.”

“Men like us are good and proud and strong...if we had a faith, a God, nothing could undermine us. But we had nothing, we had to learn everything, and living for honor alone has its weaknesses...”

“So why, when we constantly offend Him and we are so unlovable and unloving, does God persist in loving us?.... [W]hy does God still love us, despite us? I do not have an answer to this question. But I know that if God's mercy didn't exist, there would be no hope. No matter how good we tried to be, we would be punished because of our sins.”

“We find hope in a hostile place when we focus on the goodness of God as revealed in His promises. In other words, hope and security come when we - like the Israelites - acknowledge God's love for us.”