This world rubs me raw, scours me smooth like an SOS pad put to a grease-caked skillet. And pain: it stabs and scrapes and pulls me back to earth, my final B&B, that worm-spun cot of cool black sod.

I’ve had a fountain pen surgically implanted in my left index finger to save trouble. My body is tattooed with line upon line of truth, fiction, and a not-always-pleasing mix of the two.

When I pour a bowl of Uncle Sam’s cereal, I never know if I should stand when I eat, salute it first, or simply hum the Star Spangled Banner between mouthfuls.

I speak, I speak, and truth at that. Writers are a curious breed: brooding, fickle, alternately loving and hating their work—and each other. You’re my friend? Don’t pick up that pen!

Without the hard we stay too soft, and heaven is reduced to myths like life. Theology aside, it’s plain to see that God forbids we get too comfortable.

Today I fed him right off the bat, and only checked Facebook twice.

If a book can save—redeem us from the mediocrity of the mundane—surely, there must be a God.

Nonfiction. I didn’t choose it as much as it chose me. It squatted and birthed me one raw winter day then jerked me up and set me to scribing.

I think that’s why I write—the not knowing and the blasted good feeling I get out of it all.

Writing makes me hard, like a fisherman, and brown from the heat. Tossing out and reeling in is a job for visionaries and those with calloused hands.

In this book, much is metaphorical, not as it seems. It’s written for writing’s sake, as if I were to say, “Let me tell you I’m dying.” Well of course I am. So are you.

In creating you, God has alreadygiven you everything you need to livea life of endurance, abundance, andpurpose.

When I hear that a personal friend has fallen into matrimonial courses, I feel the same sorrow as if I had heard of his lapsing into theism — a holy sorrow, unmixed with anger.

We in the West do not refrain from childbirth because we are concerned about the population explosion or because we feel we cannot afford children, but because we do not like children.

Rae burned me. She has matches or something. Look, look..." Tori pulled down the collar of her T-shirt. "Leave your cloths on, Tori," Simon said, raising his hands to his eyes. "Please.

I feel comfortable tweeting things that I would never feel comfortable saying in a real life conversation, or even in other places on the internet.

This principle of unity of the whole along with respect for individual differences is symbolized in the Mishkan, the Tabernacle.

Men get it. I think us men need you women to help us survive.

So long as there is breath in me, that long will I persist.

I am also integration minister and speak with many refugees. When I ask if they came with the goal of living in Greece or Poland, most of them answer "no."

A mental midget with the IQ of a fence post.