My gratitude for good writing is unbounded I'm grateful for it the way I'm grateful for the ocean.

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.

A gracious heart, a gentle spirit.

The best diet is the one that can be sustained over the long term, combined with other healthful lifestyle behaviors.

The only place you can win a football game is on the field, the only place you can lose it is in your hearts.

Floundering around, learning by doing but also by failing, is not only good but inevitable.

I catnap now and then, but I think while I nap, so it's not a waste of time.

You know, I understand that a lot of people, especially up north, put fruits and nuts in their stuffing, which is good, but for myself personally, I love an old-timey savory dressing.

If you will show me the songs which a people or a community sing, then I will tell you the character of that community.

Because the planetary culture is becoming ever more closely knitted together all its parts are becoming co-dependent.

It was great for me getting a chance to grow up as a normal kid just out of the spotlight, versus all of them growing up in New York. They always had that intense media and spotlight on them.