I confess I take perverse delight as a theologian in the controversies surrounding postmodernism.

Only the one true God can take the risk of ruling by relying on the power of humility and love.

The church doesn’t have a social strategy, the church is a social strategy.

It’s hard to remember that Jesus did not come to make us safe, but rather to make us disciples, citizens of God’s new age, a kingdom of surprise.

We don't fall in love and then get married; instead we get married and then learn what love requires.

Never think that you need to protect God. Because anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure that you are worshipping an idol.

To be poor does not mean you lack the means to extend charity to another. You may lack money or food, but you have the gift of friendship to overwhelm the loneliness that grips the lives of so many.

We complain of the increased tempo of our lives, but our frenetic lives are just reflection of the economic system that we have created.

Jesus is Lord, and everything else is bullshit.

The courageous have fears that cowards never know.

For Christians do not place their hope in their children, but rather their children are a sign of their hope . . . that God has not abandoned this world.

To love those who love us and are good to us is easy. To love those who are indifferent to us is workable, but to love those who have harmed us, intentionally or not, is true growth and realization.

Above all else I am a dilettante in life.

I would say [I love] writing, because lately I've been finishing my book.

My mother put me on birth control as soon as I told her I wanted to go on it. I was 16. I was very young.

I'm a seeker. I'm very much a believer in science. But I do think there are times when science and mysticism intersect.

Plunge into the deep without fear, with the gladness of April in your heart.

My symphonies would have reached Opus 100 if I had but written them down... Sometimes I am so full of music, and so overflowing with melody, that I find it simply impossible to write down anything.

I love to invent - avoiding the truth. I need to dramatize.

We generally learn languages for the benefit of reading the books written in them

Who imagined that what I said upon my departure from Beirut would become a reality, when I said the volcano and typhoon which started in Beirut will not stop.