Quiet, deep breath after any prayer is another form of Amen.

Prayer means that, in some unique way, we believe we're invited into a relationship with someone who hears us when we speak in silence.

This perpetual hurry of business and company ruins me in soul if not in body. More solitude and earlier hours!

The best beauty treatment of all is time spent quietly before the Lord.

You are at your best, Ann, when you are alone with God. That's probably true of every Christian to one degree or another.

Practicing silence means making a commitment to take a certain amount of time to simply Be. Experiencing silence means periodically withdrawing from the activity of speech. It also means periodically withdrawing from such activities as watching television, listening to the radio, or reading a book. If you never give yourself the opportunity to experience silence, this creates turbulence in your internal dialogue.

I came to Jesus as I was, weary and worn and sad; I found in Him a resting place, and he has made me glad.

although I love a rich life, I hate an overcrowded life. I believe in rumination and lose half the beauty of all things when I am deprived of the time to ruminate.

Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.

I sat back in the corner with a heavy mug of dark beer and an opened glazed-paper package of pretzels and ate the pretzels for the salty flavor and the good way they made the beer taste and read about disaster.

I drank a bottle of wine for company.

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.