We must not inflict life on children who will be resented we must not inflict unwanted children on society.

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.

They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite

All I'm saying is that you shouldn't stay with him for the wrong reasons, even if they are noble ones. No one owes it to someone else to be their girlfriend. It's a choice you remake every day.

The biggest challenge, I think, is always maintaining your moral compass.

I don't categorize myself as an 85-year-old woman who has written an erotic novel. I categorize myself as a writer who's written an erotic novel.

My main source for faith-based stuff is mostly the Bible, and a childhood with a much, much higher-than-median exposure to theological thought.

I am literally the worst person at keeping secrets. I'd be the worst spy of all time.

You must master a new way to think, before you can master a new way to be.

Why is it that men who can go through severe accidents, air raids, and any other major crisis always seems to think that they are at death's door when they have a simple head cold?

I started to try to be a colorist, although secretly thinking of myself as somewhat of a black and whiteist.

Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.