No one is more sentimentalized in America than mothers on Mother's Day, but no one is more often blamed for the culture's bad people and behavior.

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.

Seek to be the smartest in a room, not the loudest.

We can always find something to be thankful for, and there may be reasons why we ought to be thankful for even those dispensations which appear dark and frowning.

Education and democracy have the same goal: the fullest possible development of human capabilities.

I am insulted by the persistent asertion that I want war. Am I a fool? War! It would settle nothing.

It's fun to play people who are flawed.

I used language because I wanted to offer content that people - not necessarily art people - could understand.

A rebellion against a tyrant is only immoral when it hasn't got a chance.

I thought I was supposed to have a fake six-pack in this scene

Culture is a plot against the expansion of consciousness.

Some men never master anything other than the details of a job. Others master the main idea back of the job.