Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious.

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.

Learn to eat with your enemies all around you but most of all thank God for his presence. Keep your eyes fixed to the presence of God in the presence of your enemies.

Higher learning undergoes emotional pressure.

This one makes a net this one stands and wishes. Would you like to make a bet which one gets the fishes?

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string? I am shamed through all my nature to have lov'd so slight a thing.

You know, that stuff about pink elephants, that's the bunk. It's little animals. Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes.

Let's hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American.

Happiness does not depend on what happens outside of you, but what happens inside of you.

Low care is what we do while on our knees. Smart care is what makes the growing easier.

Who can tell where happiness may come, or where, though an expected guest, it may never show its face?

speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.