God himself does not give answers. He gives himself.

Like Adam, we have all lost Paradise; and yet we carry Paradise around inside of us in the form of a longing for, almost a memory of, a blessedness that is no more, or the dream of a blessedness that may someday be again.

If you have never known the power of God's love, then maybe it is because you have never asked to know it - I mean really asked, expecting an answer.

It is not objective proof of God's existence that we want but, whether we use religious language for it or not, the experience of God's presence.

The Shield was another of the Fear's names. According to Laughter, it means he shields the seed of Abraham the way a man starting a fire shields the flame. When Sarah was about to die childless, the Fear gave her a son. When Abraham was about to slaughter the son, the Fear gave him the ram. He is always shielding us like a guttering wick, Laughter said, because the fire he is trying to start with us is a fire that the whole world will live to warm its hands at. It is a fire in the dark that will light the whole world home.

The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you.