Certainly we struggle as victims of other people's unkindness. We have been sinned against. But we cannot excuse our sinful responses to others on the grounds of their mistreatment of us. We are responsible for what we do. We are both strugglers and sinners, victims and agents, people who hurt and people who harm.

Gran was just being polite. Southern people are supposed to be polite and gracious. She's trying to show me how to be the same way.

By the grace of God and by keeping busy making life better for others. That is how women always get through the hard parts of life.

Go, poor devil, get thee gone! Why should I hurt thee? This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

Only the brave know how to forgive…. A coward never forgave; it is not in his nature.

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all year.

Never close your lips to those whom you have opened your heart.

Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts.

Never… be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel.

But I am sure that I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round...as a good time a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tries, and a touch that never hurts.

Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart.