Religion starts with the perception that something is wrong.

It's a great event to get outside and enjoy nature. I find it very exciting no matter how many times I see bald eagles.

Look into your own heart, discover what it is that gives you pain and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.

Jesus did not spend a great deal of time discoursing about the trinity or original sin or the incarnation, which have preoccupied later Christians. He went around doing good and being compassionate.

Each of the world religions has its own particular genius, its own special insight into the nature and requirements of compassion, and has something unique to teach us.

I like silence; I'm a gregarious loner and without the solitude, I lose my gregariousness.

Compassion is not an option. It's the key to our survival.

Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity.

Religion isn’t about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.

I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions.

Surely it's better to love others, however messy and imperfect the involvement, than to allow one's capacity for love to harden.

In human affairs of danger and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry.

Right now, all she knew was that she had the potential to love him greatly and fiercely, and she wanted to do so and nothing else very much and for many years.

If ideas are what feed serious literature and arresting language, who today is writing a novel of ideas (which can often mean comedy)? I think of Joshua Cohen. Who else?

The evolutionists seem to know everything about the missing link except the fact that it is missing.

People bring to what they see and feel, the inner weather of their souls and complexion of their minds.

When I was younger, I didn't even know how to walk. I was so self-conscious.

God is very serious about joy in the lives of His children.

Haste is productive of injury, and so is too much hesitation. He is the wisest man who does everything at the proper time.

What I am trying to say is that Jesus who incarnated God 2,000 years ago is mystically present and waiting to be discovered in EVERY person you and I encounter

The more we know about each other the safer we all are.