He spreads his fingers over my heart, like he’s holding it, like it belongs to him, the hard-fought-for territory he’s won fair and square.

Why did they come billions of miles just to stare at us? It's rude.

But hope is no less realistic than despair. It is still our choice whether to live in light or lie down in darkness.

Even the most sensitive person can get used to even the most insensitive thing. Cruelty isn’t a personality trait. Cruelty is a habit.

You know how sometimes you tell yourself that you have a choice, but really you don't have a choice? Just because there are alternatives doesn't mean they apply to you.

Sometimes in my tent, late at night, I think I can hear the stars scraping against the sky.

So often the monsters that crowd our minds are nothing more than the strange and thoroughly alien progeny of our own fearful fantasies.

You are the nest. You are the hatchling. You are the chrysalis. You are the progeny. You are the rot that falls from stars. You may not understand what I mean. You will.

You can only call someone crazy if there’s someone else who’s normal. Like good and evil. If everything was good, then nothing would be good.

It's almost dawn. You can feel it coming. The world holds its breath, because there's really no guarantee that the sun will rise. That there was a yesterday doesn't mean there will be a tomorrow.

It's hard to plan for what comes next when what comes next is not something you planned for.

What can the living do for one another? To love each other.

Experience is hard to acquire. Only the wise acquire it

Tess, there isn't a drunken, screaming netballer in the world that would have made me not want to ... continue.

To win ones joy through struggle is better than to yield to melancholy.

Jack the Rabbit and Weak Knee Willie, you know they're gonna be there. Sloppy Sue and Big Bones Billy, they'll be coming up for air.

We must have the daring to be nothing but ourselves if we are to know what true power is.

Muscle-work can only make one weary-it takes brain-work to create true exhaustion.

Leadership is the behavior each of us exerts when we take responsibility for our actions and their consequences.

I think Rodney Stark makes a substantial contribution to the study of early Christianity in posing the kinds of questions that he pursues (which reflect his social-science background).

Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations. The only sin is limitation. As soon as you once come up with a man's limitations, it is all over with him.