Of all the exotic aromas and experiences from my sojourn in Ethiopia, it’s the frankincense I miss most.

Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. And grace is getting what you absolutely don't deserve. ...... benign good will. unprovoked compassion. the unearnable gift

Grace has a way of sneaking up on you like that. When you least deserve it.

Music is a vehicle that propels me and so many other people toward a place we might call grace.

Trying to explain or define grace is like catching the wind in a cardboard box or describing the color green.

Grace doesn't obsess with ourselves. It obsesses with people and with brokenness. This is a hard place to live, but God is bigger than hard places to live.

Laughter is grace in its gaseous form.

Good morning, God. Another beautiful day. I'm still here, and so is the sun. Thank you. Right, now let's get down to business.

Maybe that's why Jesus was so fond of parables: Nothing describes the indescribable like a good yarn.

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent.

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.

It's almost a sort of fairy story tale, just what a novelist would write about a discovery.

Virtue, like wholesome food, is better than poisons, however corrected.

Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them.

No lie, just had one of the best times of my life at Rucker park..wow! I love NYHarlem waddup.

I took to the Bodleian Library as to a lover and ... would sit long hours in Bodley's arms, to emerge, blinking and dazed with the smell and feel of all those books.

I'm always going to keep your heart safe, even if mine has to stop beating for that to happen.

I'm full of clichés - I was raised by a Southern black woman and they had a saying for everything.