“Dora sat on a corner of the spread rug, longing to be assigned some task so she could resent it.”

“If Jesus gives us a task or assigns us to a difficult season, every ounce of our experience is meant for our instruction and completion if only we'll let Him finish the work. I fear, however, that we are so attention-deficit that we settle for bearable when beauty is just around the corner.”

“Courage is the ability to execute tasks and assignments without fear or intimidation.”

“Caro was coming round to the fact of unhappiness: to a realization that Dora created unhappiness and the she was bound to Dora.”

“They sat in silence. Feathers, Phoebe thought, searching in vain for some moment of her own that could rival the beauty and mystery of Faith's act. She felt a disappointment so familiar it was almost a comfort.”

“Even Grace still imagined there might be words, the words that could reach Dora and that had so far, unaccountably, not been hit upon. Only Caro recognized that Dora's condition was exactly that: a condition, an irrational state requiring professional, or divine, intervention.”