I'd finally come to understand what it had been: a yearning for a way out, when actually what I had wanted to find was a way in.

You will learn a lot about yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love.

What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?

Don't surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn't true anymore.

Whatever happens to you belongs to you. Make it yours. Feed it to yourself even if it feels impossible to swallow. Let it nurture you, because it will.

The story of human intimacy is one of constantly allowing ourselves to see those we love most deeply in a new, more fractured light. Look hard. Risk that.

You have to say I am forgiven again and again until it becomes the story you believe about yourself.

That my complicated life could be made so simple was astounding.

Real love moves freely in both directions. Don't waste your time on anything else.

Be about ten times more magnanimous than you believe yourself capable of. Your life will be a hundred times better for it.

Love is our essential nutrient. Without it, life has little meaning. It's the best thing we have to give and the most valuable thing we receive. It's worthy of all the hullabaloo.

I may err but I am not a heretic, for the first has to do with the mind and the second with the will!

I know you're more than fae." She just grinned. "It's true, I'm part fae, part awesome.

Or why you are wearing a picture of Santa Clause on you shirts, but-” “It’s Herman Melville.

The U.S. can no longer be the sheriff for the whole world. We can't be everywhere, and we can't always use military boots on the ground. We have to plan with people who have boots on the ground.

I love the writers in Austin. We stick together. We all like each other and go to each other's book signings in case no one else shows up.

The moment you say, "We are proud. I'm proud to be this, and I'm proud to be that," what you're saying is we're almost as good as the others. "Almost" always means not quite.

In all your getting, get understanding.

The chiefest action for a man of great spirit is never to be out of action... the soul was never put into the body to stand still.

The trouble with 'a place for everything and everything in its place' is that there's always more everything than places.

Everybody’s at war with different things…I’m at war with my own heart sometimes.