Being enough was going to have to be an inside job.

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.

Boy handing over his report card: Of course I seem stupid to my teachers . . . they're all college graduates.

Society my dear is like salt water good to swim in but hard to swallow.

In our dreams we can have our eggs cooked exactly how we want them, but we can't eat them.

I thought perhaps it should be recognized that religious people, including fundamentalists, are quite intelligent, many of them are highly educated, and they should be treated with complete respect.

What youth or maiden conspires with the wild luxuriant beauty of Nature? She flourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside.

A flower, when offered in the bud, is no vain sacrifice.

What is the best safeguard against false doctrine? The Bible regularly read, regularly prayed over, regularly studied.

There are many problems, but I think there is a solution to all these problems, it's just one and it's education. You educate all the girls and boys. You give them the opportunity to learn.

Anyone who has ever taken out a mortgage will be unsurprised to learn that it is, literally, a /death pledge/.