Sheldon Vanauken

Davy, too, was saying farewell to the wind, farewell to the wind and sky, watching it all go, fade away, die — and thanking God. And yet she was human, heart-breakingly human, and she did not want to die.

If one of us likes anything, there must be something to like in it — and the other one must find it. Every single thing that either of us likes. That way we shall create a thousand strands, great and small, that will link us together. Then we shall be so close that it would be impossible — unthinkable — for either of us to suppose that we could ever recreate such closeness with anyone else. And our trust in each other will not only be based on love and loyalty but on the fact of a thousand sharings — a thousand strands twisted into something unbreakable.

Christianity has the ring, the feel of unique truth. Of essential truth. By it, life is made full instead of empty, meaningful instead of meaningless.

We live in time as we live in the air we breathe. And we love the air — who has not taken deep breaths of pure, fresh country air, just for the pleasure of it? How strange that we cannot love time.

Sometimes — more precisely, some-not-times — we find "the still point of the turning world". All our most lovely moments perhaps are timeless.

If, indeed, grief is a response to the presence — seeming or real — of the dead, then the end of grief might correspond to some necessary turning away on their part.

As nearly as a lover can do, I was seeing the whole of her — a wholeness I would never lose — and knowing her soul.

[Her death] saved our love from perishing in one of the other ways that love could perish. Would I not rather our love go through death than hate?

But, though I wouldn't have admitted it, even to myself, I didn't want God aboard. He was too heavy. I wanted Him approving from a considerable distance.

A choice was necessary: and there is no certainty. One can only choose a side. So I — I now choose my side: I choose beauty; I choose what I love. But choosing to believe is believing.

We had had what we had chosen, not business success or scholarly acclaim but a great love.

The future dream charms us because of its timelessness; and I think most of the charm we see in the "good old days" is no less an illusion of timelessness.