The man on the water stood forty yards out.
....her life would be a giddy crossword, working down from some clues and across from others.
Is worry’s sly assassin.
We and the world, my children, will always be at war. Retreat is impossible. Arm yourselves.
Speculators make me nervous, I managed to say in a slow soggy tone. What needless suspicion, he said. To speculate is to imagine. To wonder. At least I think that’s what he said, before a shape sank p...
Make of that what you will.
Yes, yes sir—routine is worry’s sly assassin.
SOON, he replied, which makes better sense under the rules of that country than ours. VERY SOON! he added, clasping my hands; then, unable to keep from laughing, he pushed off from the rock like a boy...
I remember it as October days are always remembered, cloudless, maple-flavored, golden and so clean it quivers.
A line only gets grace when it curves, you know.
You can’t explain grace, anyway, especially when it arrives almost despite yourself. I didn’t even ask for it, yet somehow it breached and began to work.
Memory’s oldest trick is convincing us of its accuracy.
Listening to Dad’s guitar, halting yet lovely in the search for phrasing, I thought: Fair is whatever God wants to do.
You are no failure, on a river. The water moves regardless - for all it cares, you might be a minnow or a tadpole, a turtle on a beavered log. You might be nothing at all.
We and the world, my children, will always be at war.Retreat is impossible.Arm yourselves.
Sometimes it seems every woman I meet is more than a match for me.
Once traveling, it's remarkable how quickly faith erodes. It starts to look like something else--ignorance, for example. Same thing happened to the Israelites. Sure it's weak, but sometimes you'd rath...
This was maybe best of all. I never once expected to be someone's nice surprise.
Although saying this, I realize it may have been illusory. Memory’s oldest trick is convincing us of its accuracy.
When a person dies, the earth is generally unwilling to cough him back up. A miracle contradicts the will of earth.