Nan is the mortar that holds the tiles of their family together.

Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat.

Don't ever discount the wonder of your tears. They can be healing waters and a stream of joy. Sometimes they are the best words the heart can speak.

Grace doesn't depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors.

Life takes a bit of time and a lot of relationship.

those who are afraid of freedom are those who cannot trust us to live in them. Trying to keep the law is actually a declaration of independence, a way of keeping control

Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive.

So many believe that it is love that grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it.

I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships so will our healing, and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside.

You cannot produce trust just like you cannot 'do' humility. It either is or is not.

Did I hear God call me an idiot?

The deep map configures narratives. It is a matrix of intertexual storytelling, charting our movements through the landscape.

For tho' from out our bourne of time and place The flood may bear me far I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar.

For a 12-year-old with a hyperactive imagination who liked to dream of dreary gothic castles, suburban Florida felt a little stifling.

The heart knows no logic, and rarely corresponds with the brain.

I think I wished for you all of my life.

Some have said that I can accept inadequacies in my players but not in umpires. That completely misses the point. I can't tolerate anyone's mistake.

I always supported the women I worked with having time off to go to parent-teacher conferences and doctors' appointments or bringing their infants into the office.

Writing is such a singular and lonely occupation. And it's interesting; all of the work that you create is so singular.

All human advances occur in the outlaw area.

I'm not really afraid of the dark, except if I'm walking. The thing that scares me the most is the possibility of walking into a wall and busting my lip.