“Every time a good child dies, an angel of God comes down to earth. He takes the child in his arms, spreads out his great white wings, and flies with it all over the places the child loved on earth. The angel plucks a large handful of flowers, and they carry it with them up to God, where the flowers bloom more brightly than they ever did on earth.”

Faith in America speech, 2007

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

Source: Servant of the Bones

A Wrinkle in Time (1962)

Variant: Do you think they missed him terribly when he fell? Did God cry over his lost angel, I wonder?
Source: Rebel Angels

Aurora Leigh http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barrett/aurora/aurora.html (1857)
Context: And truly, I reiterate,.. nothing's small!
No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim:
And, — glancing on my own thin, veined wrist, —
In such a little tremour of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct. Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more, from the first similitude.

Bk. VII, l. 812-826.

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 260.

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 13 “Keda” (p. 73)

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 264.