To be flung into the sea, to be washed hither and thither, and driven about the roots of the world—the idea was incoherently delightful. She sprang up, and began moving about the room, bending and thrusting aside the chairs and tables as if she were indeed striking through the waters. He watched her with pleasure; she seemed to be cleaving a passage for herself, and dealing triumphantly with the obstacles which would hinder their passage through life.

Knitting is the saving of life.

It's so natural to think the Presence of Jesus has no greater purpose than to improve the quality of our journey through life—with quality defined as a pleasurable, satisfying, self-affirming existence—a journey where certain things don't go wrong or, if they do, they correct themselves. Marriages should work, biopsies should come back benign, ministry efforts should succeed, and we should feel pretty good about the way most things go.

Facing a situation head on was the only way to deal with anything. I learned the lesson early.

I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.

I have to say that when you tour the world, obviously, the jetlags and different hours and ways of living and traveling, a lot of hours in the plane, and you wake up in the morning and you're not quite sure where you are, and it is very tiring.

I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time.

Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest.

what I want you to be - I don't mean physically but morally: you are very well physically - is a firm fellow, a fine firm fellow, with a will of your own, with resolution. with determination. with strength of character that is not to be influenced except on good reason by anybody, or by anything. That's what I want you to be. That's what your father, & your mother might both have been

The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' Consider nothing impossible, then treat the possibilites as probabilities.

When a plunge is to be made into the water, it's of no use lingering on the bank.

Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy than of Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been a bramble-bush; getting considerably worried and scratched by every letter. After that, I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition. But, at last I began, in a purblind groping way, to read, write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale