[S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve. (68)

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.

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.

Random chance is not sufficient to explain random chance. ~Jubal Harshaw

God didn't make Eve from Adam's rib. He took out half of Adam's brain by accident.

Pa he always said a man had to look spry for himself because nobody would do it for him your opportunities didn't come knocking around you had to hunt them down and hog-tie them.

The power that comes from knowing the facts of history is dwarfed by the power that comes from being able to shape the stories about how that history is written and told.

It’s very hard to be an innovator at the highest level in any discipline. For some chefs it’s merely about combining ingredients, but that’s something you can do with your eyes closed.

I'm ready to take the heat.

War is pillage versus resistance and if illusions of magnitude could be transmuted into ideals of magnanimity, peace might be realized.

I predict that this will be the greatest book ever and it will sell more than any other book in history

The merchant has no country .