“Perhaps life is like an hour glass, with dear ones the sand that slips from the upper glass–the earth–into the second–eternity.”

“I did not worry about what a man or woman personally believed, but the nation’s official religion should be outwardly practiced by all its citizens. A religion was a political statement. Being a Calvinist, a papist, a Presbyterian, an Anglican labeled a person’s philosophy on education, taxes, poor relief, and other secular things. The nation needed an accepted position on such concerns. Hence the fines for not outwardly conforming to the national church.”

“The most wicked criminals have God on their lips at all times, for God is the only one who can stomach them.”

“Hope is a straw hat hanging beside a window covered with frost.”

“So I learned two things that night, and the next day, from him: the perfection of a moment, and the fleeting nature of it.”