Gratitude, not understanding, is the secret to joy and equanimity.

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.

Whenever a woman gets pregnant, she literally bets with her life.

I've learned that friendship does not equate business, business does not equate friendship.

I don't have to jump up and smile just because TV wants me to.

If I know everything around the situation, all the facts, I feel like I can handle just about anything.

I mean, there's no arguing. There is no anything. There is no beating around the bush. 'You're fired' is a very strong term.

Be sure to give the same expression to a person's face that you give to his body.

Writing has made me a better man. It has put me in contact with those fleeting moments which prove the existence.

Truth could be violent, could strip you of dignity and hope just as quickly as a gun.

Come windless invader I am a carnival of Stars, a poem of blood.

Many of my works fall into the category of "Zeitgeist novels." Yet I hope that they aren't only reportage, but also attempts to convey the sense of the present to the future.