The thing I love about Dickens is the omniscient, omnipotent narrator, and the great confidence of the narrator, which marks 19th-century novelists in general and Dickens in particular.

A true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

I've never seen any life transformation that didn't begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit.

Tis' better to live your own life imperfectly than to imitate someone else's perfectly.

Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.

I'm choosing happiness over suffering, I know I am. I'm making space for the unknown future to fill up my life with yet-to-come surprises.

This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.

There's always another level up. There's always another ascension. More grace, more light, more generosity, more compassion, more to shed, more to grow.

You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.

Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.

If you're going to answer the call and you're going to transform and you're going to change, get ready. It is not a day at the beach.

Literature endures like the universal spirit, And its breath becomes a part of the vitals of all men.

Never trust a man with a lunatic wife in an attic, " Richard told me. "And anyone named Heathcliff should make you suspicious.

Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation.

In time there is no present, In eternity no future, In eternity no past.

We have got to make disciples. Fun nights and pizza nights are not going to sustain us.

I really enjoy doing both, but I didn't write nonfiction until 1994.

Sunday, if I'm lucky, I'll go to church or listen to some good spiritual advice on the television or on the radio. I take three or four baths to try to cleanse myself, so I'm fresh for Monday.

I'd say I'm pretty messy. NOT dirty though - there's a difference. Messy people leave clothes on their bedroom floor... dirty people leave pizza boxes.

I try to write in a way where the lyrics have many meanings and you won't really know what's behind it.

Civilization must be destroyed. The hairy saints of the North have earned this crumb by their complaints.