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1 " Last Christmas Daphne hadn't been born yet; nor had Fanny. Now here sat Daphne chewing a wad of blue tissue while Franny stirred her fists through Agatha's jigsaw puzzle. They both seemed so accustomed to being here. And Danny and Lucy had completely vanished . Something was wrong with a world where people came and went so easily. "
― Anne Tyler , Saint Maybe
2 " View your burden as a gift. It’s the theme that has been given you to work with. Accept that, and lean into it. This is the only life you’ll have. "
3 " That's because I was in love with this girl who taught archery there. Marie, her name was. Every night I prayed and prayed for her to love me back. I said, 'God, if you'll do this one thing for me I'll believe in you forever and I'll never ask another favor.' But she preferred the lifeguard and they started going out together. After that, why, me and God just never have been that chummy.'Ian said, 'Well, what does that prove? Good grief! You act as if it proves something. But all it proves is, you didn't know what was best for you. You were asking for a girl who wasn't right for you. "
4 " Out in the main room, Ian lowered himself into a seat and unbuttoned his jacket. His fingers felt weak, as if he’d come through an ordeal. To steady himself, he bowed his head and prayed. He prayed as he almost always did, not forming actual words but picturing instead this spinning green planet safe in the hands of God, with the children and his parents and Ian himself small trusting dots among all the other dots. And the room around him seemed to rustle with prayers from years and years past: Let me get well and Make her love me and Forgive what I have done. "
5 " he thought now that his mother’s staunch sprightliness had been braver than he had appreciated in his youth. (Last summer, laid up for a week with a wrenched back, he had suddenly wondered how Bee had endured the chronic pain of her arthritis all those years. He suspected that had taken a good deal more strength than the brief, flashy acts of valor you see in the movies.) "
6 " Finally Reverend Emmett asked, 'Shall we walk on?' So they did. They passed a lone man waiting at a bus stop, a shopkeeper locking up his store. Each footstep, Ian felt, led him closer to something important. He was acutely conscious all at once of motion, of flux and possibility. He felt he was an arrow - not an arrow shot by God but an arrow heading toward God, and if it took every bit of this only life he had, he believed that he would get there in the end. "
7 " For the first time it occurred to him that there was something steely and inhuman to this religion business. "
