Before entering the seminary, I had not encountered the life-changing potential of reading as a source of meaning, as a way of ordering one's inner life, and being rooted in the world.

There are times when we stop, we sit still. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.

Telling our stories is what saves us. The story is enough... The very act of storytelling, of arranging memory and invention according to the structure of narrative is, by definition, holy.

The whole story of human and personal progress is an unmitigated tale of denials today-denials of rest, denials or repose and comfort and ease and pleasure-that tomorrow may be richer.

Memory is a political act. Forgetfulness is the handmaiden of tyranny.

There are so many flaws, .. I don't think they can be fixed.

To learn to love, one must first learn to see.

Thoughts are just moving through consciousness. They have no power. Nothing has reality until you reach it, grab it, and somehow impregnate it with the power of belief.

The whole idea of interviews is in itself absurd - one cannot answer deep questions about what one's life was like - one writes novels about it.

Affecting the world is obviously possible when we see people in the world who we really love and respect and we see how that they affect our lives.

What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.

The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write.

Comfort zones are most often expanded through discomfort.

A creative writing class may be one of the last places you can go where your life still matters.

It really pains me greatly to hear from graduate students that graduate education is a lower priority here.

Never underestimate a man's ability to underestimate a woman.