"Nobody can tell in advance whether a day may not come when everything within you tempts you to prove false — nay, even if you pray God to help you, you will not think He does so unless He helps you in the way you desire. Then it is at any rate a help to feel yourself bound by your own word and honour."
— Sigrid Undset, The Wild Orchid, p. 220-1
"But generally one prays for the sake of praying. It’s the same thing when you’re with ordinary people just — as a rule you’re with them for the sake of having their compay, because you like them and think it’s cheerful to have them to talk to."
— Sigrid Undset, The Wild Orchid, p. 46-7
"Say your prayers in a garden early, ignoring steadfastly the dew, the birds and the flowers, and you will come away overwhelmed by its freshness and joy; go there in order to be overwhelmed and, after a certain age, nine times out of ten nothing will happen to you."
— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"Bear in mind, children, that they listen to you because you are kids — not because you are right. That’s how our Father listens to us.…We never understand what we’re praying, and God, in His mercy, does not answer our prayers according to our understanding, but according to His wisdom."
— Rich Mullins. Lufkin, Texas (July 19, 1997)
"[He] Spoke some stiff piece of childish prayer,
Dull as the distant chimes,
That thanked our God for good eating
And corn and quiet times —"
— G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse, VI/44-7
