Write as if your parents are dead.

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.

Let today be the day you learn the grace of letting go and the power of moving on.

How envious I am that the sun may kiss your porcelain skin and forever change how the world sees you.

In violent and chaotic times such as these our only chance for survival lies in creating our own little islands of sanity and order in making little havens of our homes.

To be loved, feelings must be rationed. To love, the doors of hysteria, fantasy, and madness may be flung open.

It's fair to say average Americans think that the average Afghan doesn't want American troops in their country.

A lot of money eliminates a category of worry. If your car breaks down, youre still going to get through the day. But it doesnt make you a happy person if you werent a happy person before.

So many people are in comedy because of difficult mothers or broken homes.

There are only two families in the world, my old grandmother used to say, the Haves and the Have-nots.

He had a massive stroke. He died with his tie on. Do you think that could be our generation's equivalent of that old saying about dying with your boots on?