Prayer is not a matter of getting what we want the most. Prayer is a matter of giving ourselves to God and learning His laws, so that He can do through us what He wants the most.

As we practice the work of forgiveness we discover more and more that forgiveness and healing are one.

The impulse of love that leads us to the doorway of a friend is the voice of God within, and we need not be afraid to follow it.

The more people pointed at me in scorn the more stubborn I got and when they began calling me the Bad Girl of West Seattle High, I tried to live up to it.

I'd defend the right for any novelist to experiment with form or language, but if people don't take to it, don't react by making out that they are thick.

I'm still pretty terrified of heights.

Reading the Gospels, without the personality of Jesus, is like watching television with the sound turned off.

The past is still visible. The buildings haven't changed, the layout of the streets hasn't changed. So memory is very available to me as I walk around.

Only oppression should fear the full exercise of freedom.

Ive done a dozen or two dozen infomercials.

For me the form, the stanzaic shape, is an endorsement, proof that I'm engaged with the Latin or Greek at an original level, that my versions are explorations.

Quotations can be valuable, like raisins in the rice pudding, for adding iron as well as eye appeal.

My sexuality is a part of me that I really like. But it's not the totality of me.