About two-thirds of Americans believe that the Bible "answers all or most of the basic questions of life"—and 28 percent of them admit that they rarely or never read it!

Indeed, like so many encounters with Jesus in the Gospel stories, we might go to the Bible looking for answers, but we usually come away with more questions.

The Bible is not a book of answers but a library of questions.

The Bible appears to be the most revered book never read.

Mercy, how we do so often love to immortalize those despised and forgotten in life.

For the sight of the angry weather saddens my soul and the sight of the town, sitting like a bereaved mother beneath layers of ice, oppresses my heart.

Marriage is the ultimate solitude with minimal privacy.

Contemporaries of Alexander Hamilton noticed "his conspicuous sense of self-possession, his unique combination of serenity and energy.

Malady of mortality

Like the musician, the painter, the poet and the rest, the true lover of flowers is born, not made.

Whatever capacity she possesses to supernaturally beguile a human soul—and she possesses many—she liked his clear-sightedness too well, to blind him that way.

A good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied

I'm not the angry, rebellious child that I was. You can remain a child for a long time. I certainly did. I was a slow learner.

To be a friend takes time, and time is what nobody has. Therefore, real friends are rare.