There is a silence, the child of love, which expresses everything, and proclaims more loudly than the tongue is able to do.

As we had no part of our will on our entrance into this life, we should not presume to any on our leaving it, but soberly learn to will which He wills.

I think when your imagination goes to work, and when you're first bullied, you feel like you're going to die. School becomes a war zone, and you can't function.

That a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself.

People often refer to bygone days as a simpler time. Perhaps, more accurately, my grandparents' generation focused better on what mattered. Traffic jams and minor quibbles with my husband Daniel pale in comparison with the worries that were faced on the home front and battlefield during the Second World War.

Part of what I loved - and love - about being around older people is the tangible sense of history they embody. I'm interested in military history, for instance, because both my grandfathers fought in World War II. I'm interested in writing because one of those grandfathers wrote books.