simply to ask a blessing upon one's circumstances, whatever they are, is somehow to improve them, and to tap some mysterious source of energy and joy.

There must be some deep psychological reason why we turn so instinctively toward home at this special time. . . . A place where every day will be Christmas, with everybody there together. At home.

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.

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.

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.

Man is the only creature whose emotions are entangled with his memory.

My God would never deliberately bring harm to anyone. But if it happens, if it simply happens due to wind and rain and weather and man's own mistakes, then God has promises to keep: Li£e continuing. An even richer, fuller, brighter ongoing life to compensate.

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.

the habit of shutting doors behind us is invaluable to happiness we must learn to shut life's doors to cut out the futile wind of past mistakes.

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

The man or woman who treasures his friends is usually solid gold himself.

some people seem to graze like sheep in the placid pastures of their faith. Some of them were born there and never broke away ... Others, after some wandering, found shelter there and are quiet and content. They look with a bland mystification at the mavericks.