Lanie Smith

“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”
― Anne Lamott

“They looked like the people you see on the six o’clock news—refugees, sent to wait in some strange ugly place, with all their boxes and sacks around them. It suddenly occurred to me that this was just the way it must have been for the real Holy Family, stuck away in a barn by people who didn’t much care what happened to them. They couldn’t have been very neat and tidy either, but more like this Mary and Joseph”
― Barbara Robinson, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

“Sometimes the sins you haven't committed are all you have left to hold onto.”
― David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames

“I happened to look at Imogene and I almost dropped by hymn book on a baby angel.
Everyone had been waiting all this time for the Herdmans to do something absolutely unexpected. And sure enough, that was what happened.
Imogene Herdman was crying.
In the candlelight her face was all shiny with tears and she didn't even bother to wipe them away. She just sat there-awful old Imogene-in her crookedy veil, crying and crying and crying.
Well. It was the best Christmas pageant we ever had.”
― Barbara Robinson, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever