I honestly think that in order to be a writer you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here?

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.

My daughter and two sons are the flowers in my heart and garden.

Make the most out of every single day you have on earth and be thankful for them.

There are definitely worse people to be compared with. I think Brad Pitt makes interesting decisions.

I spent a long time trying to make it in the commercial world hoping that commercials would then lead to movies. That was a less-travelled path at the time, although it's very well-travelled now.

The superstition in which we were brought up never loses its power over us, even after we understand it.

To tackle climate change you don't have to reduce your quality of life, but you do have to change the way you live

And he smiled at her, truely smiled- wicked and lovely.

No enterprise, small or large, public or private, can remain self-governing, let alone successful, so deeply in hock to others as we are about to be.

A drunkard is unprofitable for any kind of good service.

Enlightenment is the journey back from the head to the heart.