Julie

“Who's the Devil?"
Frances crouches down as if she were talking to Trixie.
"That's something I'll never tell you, Lily, no matter how old you get to be, because the Devil is shy. It makes him angry when someone recognizes him, so once they do the Devil gets after them. And I don't want the Devil to get after you."
"Is the Devil after you?"
"Yes."
"Jesus can beat the Devil."
"If God wants."
"God is against the Devil."
"God made the Devil."
"Why?"
"For fun."
"No, to test us."
"If you know, why are you asking me?"
"Daddy says there's no such thing as the Devil, it's just an idea."
"The Devil lives with us."
"No he doesn't."
"You see the Devil every day. The Devil hugs you and eats right next to you."
"Daddy's not the Devil."
"I never said he was. ..." Frances has got a dry look, tinder in the eye; her voice is a stack of hay heating up at the center, her mouth a stitched line. "I'm the Devil."
This is the moment Lily stops being afraid of anything Frances could ever say or do again. Stops being afraid of anything at all. She reaches out and takes Frances's hand. The white hand that always smells of small wildflowers, lily of the valley. The hand that has always done up Lily's buttons and laces, and produced wondrous objects. She holds Frances's hand and tells her,
"It's okay, Frances.”
― Ann-Marie MacDonald, Fall on Your Knees

“Because no one is good without God. And we can do nothing good without Him. So it's futile to regret a good deed, Ulf, for the good you have done cannot be taken back; even if all the mountains should fall, it would still stand.”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter

“But love has to be stronger than hate, or there is no future for us.”
― Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale

“The smile he gives me comes slowly but reaches into someplace deep, someplace that feel as if it's never been touched until now, like the cold bottom of the lake that the sun has never warmed before this moment. "You forget," he says, "you're my heart's true love.”
― Carol Goodman, The Lake of Dead Languages