Meaning drives us from despair to wonder, from confusion to clarity, from hesitance to confidence. And the only place to find meaning is in the importance of small things.

Wonder is not a Pollyanna stance, not a denial of reality; wonder is an acknowledgement of the power of the mind to transform, to notice, to decide what experience shall mean.

When you’re stuck in a spiral, to change all aspects of the spin you need only to change one thing.

Writing bridges the inner and outer worlds and connects the paths of action and reflection.

Words are how we think; stories are how we link.

Journal writing is a voyage to the interior.

In the midst of overwhelming noise and distraction, the voice of story is calling us to remember our true selves.

To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against.

The purpose of life is not to maintain personal comfort; it's to grow the soul.

Spiritual life is contractual. The sacred cannot dialogue with the unresponsive.

Creatures of a very particular making, we need to know the cultural blinders that narrow our world view as well as the psychological blinders that narrow our view of our personal experience.

Blood diamonds, she thought. That’s exactly what these are. She felt almost as superstitious as the Africans now, as if the pink diamonds themselves had somehow caused all this hardship and death.

This is what America's all about, nobody's being hurt they have a right to express themselves, I watched all the television I could on Miami-Dade and I didn't see anybody being shoved around.

Sometimes it ain’t about being the most talented. Sometimes it ain’t about being the smartest. Sometimes it’s not even about working the hardest. Sometimes it’s about consistency! Consistency!

If I spread myself too thin, I'm not a good actor, I'm not a good mother, and I'm just really high-strung - and everybody hates me.

Amanda is now a tenure-track professor at Yale.

What I really hope for, ultimately, is that the closet will be a non-factor in American politics in a couple of decades.

My ahimsa is my own. I am not able to accept in its entirety the doctrine of non-killing of animals.

Some people say there's nothing new under the sun. I still think that there's room to create, you know. And intuition doesn't necessarily come from under this sun. It comes from within.

All that God had to do to harden Pharaoh's heart, or to harden your heart, is to withhold His own grace.