Why does a literary scholar study the world of "fiction"? To show us that the facts can never be understood except in communion with the imagination.

Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.

Community is a place where the connections felt in our hearts make themselves known in the bonds between people, and where the tuggings and pullings of those bonds keep opening our hearts.

I now know myself to be a person of weakness and strength, liability and giftedness, darkness and light. I now know that to be whole means to reject none of it but to embrace all of it.

One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present to another person's pain without trying to "fix" it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person's mystery and misery.

We are here not only to transform the world but also to be transformed.

Self-care is never a selfish act - it is only good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others.

Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you.

Community doesn't just create abundance - community is abundance. If we could learn that equation from the world of nature, the human world might be transformed.

At its deepest level, I think teaching is about bringing people into communion with each other, with yourself as the teacher, and with the subject you are teaching.

Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.

Trust" are the eyes you need in the shadow of death.

Use your imagination not to scare you to death but to inspire you to live.

I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.

He [Andrew Carnegie] wanted people to be able to lift themselves, to educate themselves, to train themselves. And there was no better way to do that than with libraries.

There have been two great revelations in my life: The first was bepop, the second was homeopathy.

We cannot give Russia veto over deployment of forces on NATO territory. But we have to understand their particular sensitivities, and, therefore, there should be a dialogue on these issues.

I've always enjoyed a woman's company more than men's. They're usually better looking.

By law, all buildings should be white.

Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offense.

Time is not a great artist but weakens all he touches.