I don't want something special. I want something beautifully plain.

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.

Do not seek wealth or splendor, but seek true wisdom, freedom, and joy of life.

We find ourselves constantly in battle in the vast human theaters of conflict.

Death itself is less painful when it comes upon us unawares than the bare contemplation of it, even when danger is far distant.

If it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it rips out your heart, that's a good picture.

The moment passes. There is no point in regretting irreversible decisions—one has to live with them, and we try.

There's a kind of magical thinking about these kinds of things. Throw away those bad photos before the "magic" attaches to them, so the good ones stand out.

Is it not demonstrated that a true flying machine, self-raising, self-sustaining, self-propelling, is physically impossible?

Japan has introduced fiscal stimulus five times in the past seven or eight years and each time it's been a failure and that's not a surprise. Fiscal stimulus is not stimulating in and of itself.

There are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage... Your values must be alike. And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?" Yes? "Your belief in the importance of your marriage.

One of the real challenges, since we're working in so many places - Mexico, Japan, Brazil - is understanding variations, both in terms of culture and context.