I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.

One day you’re racing about the business of life, harried but vital, a part of its machinery. Then gradually but inexorably you are left out, until one day you find the machinery tearing along without you – and nobody even notices.

What feeling in all the world is so nice as that of a child’s hand in yours? It is soft. It is small and warm. It is as innocent and guileless as a rabbit or a puppy or a kitten huddling in the shelter of your clasp.

Young women especially have something invested in being nice people, and it’s only when you have children that you realize you’re not a nice person at all, but generally a selfish bully.

A child’s hand in yours – what tenderness and power it arouses. You are instantly the very touchstone of wisdom and strength.

Thank you, God, for the dignity and beauty of self. The precious innate self. The only thing that can’t be taken from us. The only thing we really own.

Oh, God, give me grace for this day. Not for a lifetime, nor for next week, nor for tomorrow, just for this day. Direct my thoughts and bless them Direct my work and bless it. Direct the things I say and give them blessing, too. Direct and bless everything that I think and speak and do. So that for this one day, just this one day, I have the gift of grace that comes from your presence. . . .

Let me remember that each life must follow its own course, and that what happens to other people has absolutely nothing to do with what happens to me.

Death is the perfect knowing.

When you write from the heart, you not only light the dark path of your readers, you light your own way as well.