Almost every single thing you hope publication will do for you is a fantasy, a hologram--it's the eagle on your credit card that only seems to soar.

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.

Dogs are the closest we come to knowing the divine love of God on this side of eternity.

... the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. [pp. 65-66]

Sometimes I think that Jesus watches my neurotic struggles, and shakes his head and grips his forehead and starts tossing back mojitos.

Nothing heals us like letting people know our scariest parts: When people listen to you cry and lament, and look at you with love, it's like they are holding the baby of you.

Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

I thought the secret of life was obvious: be here now, love as if your whole life depended on it, find your life's work, and try to get hold of a giant panda.

Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit.

Lessen the odds are stacked against you, Use Cosmic Ordering.

And I try to teach my heart not to want nothing it can't have.

Did you ever dream you had a friend, Alec? Someone to last your whole life and you his. I suppose such a thing can’t really happen outside sleep.

Without conflict there is no plot, without hope there is no story

There are certain religions that require you to pray five times a day and I never understood why Christians aren't asked to pray five times a day.

The more I read, to me the more incredible everything is. Based on what I've read, there are all these other dimensional planes and spaces, mathematically proven.

A young man is stirred and stimulated by the consciousness of how much depends upon his own exertions: a young girl is oppressed by it.

The essence of all practice is to be cool. Life is not worth getting excited about because whatever you perceive is an illusion.

A civil guest Will no more talk all, than eat all the feast.

I'm not denying that he's a terrific guy, but I'm not sure he's terrific for me.