“Fear can keep you up all night, but faith makes one fine pillow.”

“I can only make one person happy each day.Today is not your day.Tomorrow doesn't look good, either.”

“Raw pain alarms. us. It reminds us that life isn't as orderly as we'd hoped. We demand that pain settle down before we shuffle it off to the quiet table. We want pain to stay in its own little section, want to keep it from spilling over into the other parts of life. Just like . lunch trays. Keep pain in its own little compartment.”

“The leaves of our blessed lives fall to the ground and if we're wise like my grandfather, we gather them in a pile and keep them safe lest the winds of forgetfulness blow them away.”

“Wrinkled women lifting their faces, chasing their youth. Fat men sucking in bellies. Poor folks putting on airs.Sinners acting like saints.All of us keeping pace with our companions, stepping lively in this dance of deceit.”

“Our first night in the house, my wife and I were lying in bed. I was thanking God for my blessings. Thanking God for not having to pull aside a dining room curain to have my children near—that they were right down the hall, asleep in their Superman underwear, their little chests rising and falling to the pulse of their dreams.I thought how some blessings are fickle guests. Just when we think they're here to stay, they pack their bags and move. When we're in the midst of blessing, we think it's our due—that blessing lasts forever. Next thing you know we're sitting helpless beside a hospital bed. All we're left with is a name on a wall, a toy in a desk, and memories that haunt our sleep.Sometimes we come to gratitute too late. It's only after blessing has passed on that we realize what we had.”

“Love, even that love which is imagined, is sometimes all we have to get us through.”