None of us truly knows what we'll do when the circumstances become so overwhelming and complex that we can't even tell right from wrong.

Nobody gets to pick their time to die, but living every day to the max is something we all get to do.

Pain and suffering are the soil of strength and courage.

For as long as the world spins and the earth is green with new wood, she will lie in this box and not in my arms.

You don't know me, but I know about you...I can't make you live longer. I can't stop you from hurting. But I can give you one wish, as someone did for me.

Who wants to be used? I love to read, so books are my main friends. They're always available, always friendly, and always interesting, and they never make me choose sides.

If I can't wait for you at the end of an aisle on your wedding day, I'll wait for you in heaven.

I wanted to write about the third world and had the opportunity to go live in the trenches, so to speak.

I am very privileged and honored when someone chooses to read a book, especially a book of mine.

But they can't know how the dark space inside me is growing. I lie to them. I can't get out of the dark hole. 'Peace is here' it whispers.

So this is always the key: you have to write the book you love, the book that's alive in your heart. That's the one you have to write.

How I hate the sight of an umbrella!

If someone wanted to have a grudge against me, or didn't agree with my lifestyle, the way I breathed, the space I took up on this planet, they had an open door to 'report' to the powers that be.

Success is the most important to many, to me it's just a bonus.

We were not born with guilt nor obligation. When you give in to guilt, you endorse it.

As the moths around a taper, As the bees around a rose, As the gnats around a vapour, So the spirits group and close Round about a holy childhood, as if drinking its repose.

I am basically a feminist. I think that women can do anything they decide to do.

Livability has always struck me as a consolation prize.

Go forward, knowing that you are greater than the challenges of your time.

Each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ.

The key is that Jesus does want to speak to us-to you-today. In your own language, just as a friend would speak. We simply need to take the time to listen.