Tonda Raven

“I might have felt unimportant pitted against the awesome might of the mountains. I did not. Rather, on that mountain top I found something important that I had never known before: an awareness of a vital connection between me and the Authority behind all this beauty. I remembered my conversation with Dr. MacNeill that afternoon in my schoolroom. He had said that he believed in some “starter-force” but that he could not credit a loving God with concern for individuals. But the “starter-force” behind the magnificence displayed before my wondering eyes had an authority behind it that could be no abstraction, for it had immediacy—known and felt. Now I knew how to answer the doctor’s question. Call this what you might—“starter-force,” “God,” “Father”—it was personal all right. It thrust deep into me. It pulled. And it insisted that life was precious—all of life—Fairlight and I, and every bird and every squirrel and every tree reaching through its forest cover for the light. It cried that all effort was worthwhile; that doubt and fear and discouragement were a desecration of beauty, that hope was always right. It insisted that small achievement was not enough; that hopes and dreams must be large enough to stand up beside those soaring summits and not once bow their heads in shame.”
― Catherine Marshall, Christy

“You can’t save anyone who wouldn’t save themselves without you. It’s the hardest lesson to learn in life, take it from me.
- p. 47, The Brothers Silver”
― Marc Jampole, The Brothers Silver

“Beth looks to Steven, "You should have stayed in Hell.”
― Carl Novakovich, The Watchers: The Tomb

“If you really want to remove a cloud from your life, you do not make a big production of it, you just relax and remove it from your thinking. That's all there is to it.”
― Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah