“My religion is no way of knowing me. Mine is a way of knowing me. When I pray I feel I'm doing something clean. But why pray so the whole neighbourhood hears your prayers? Why use microphones?”

“I sometimes wonder if my requests are legitimate. So I'm honest with God. I say, "Lord, I don't know if I have the right to ask for this. I don't know how I should pray about it. But I hand it over to your now, and if you'll tell me how to pray, I'll pray your way."”

“People have doubted me and criticized me my whole life, and that's why I'm the way I am.”

“All my life to pretend this world of theirs is mine
And to know such pretending is disgraceful.
But what can I do? Suppose I suddenly screamed
And started to prophesy. No one would hear me.
Their screens and microphones are not for that.”

“All right, boy, skewer me. I've dropped my defenses,
I'm an easy victim. Why, by now
Your arrows practically know their own way to the target
And feel less at home in their quiver than in me.”

“So softly Lizzy has to lean over to hear me, I say, 'I can't face the world until I know why I'm here.'
You're kidding me.'
I shake my head vehemently. 'No. I need to figure out my purpose. Until I do, what's the use of getting up?”

“My reason will still not understand why I pray, but I shall still pray, and my life, my whole life, independently of anything that may happen to me, is every moment of it no longer meaningless as it was before, but has an unquestionable meaning of goodness with which I have the power to invest it.”

“I know what it is to hope and pray so hard that you're sure God will answer your prayer just so you'll stop asking.”

“And now I have to stop. Because every time I remember this, I have to cry a little by myself. I don't know why something that made me so happy then feels so sad now. Maybe that is the way it is with the best memories.”

“I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I should any more. This made me sad and tired. Then I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I shouldn't, the way Doreen did, and this made me even sadder and more tired.”