I didn't need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees.

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.

To translate a poem from thinking into English takes all night.

The true snob never rests there is always a higher goal to attain and there are by the same token always more and more people to look down upon.

Sympathy, Love, Fortune... We all have these qualities but still tend to not use them!

I have dual citizenship, it just so happens I live in America.

I guess part of the hit-man appeal is the solitude. Everybody is lured to the idea of the solitary life.

Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find the right road.

The people were simpler, more peaceable and friendly in their manners and dispositions; and assassinations, which give the southern provinces so ill a reputation, were almost unknown.

The apparent ease with which children learn is their ruin.

I am not responsible for actions of the imaginary version of me you have inside your head.

The main quality a great third base coach must have is a fast runner.