The first draft is the child's draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later.

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.

I am commanding you, as an older and wiser brother, to get over here, get on this caterpillar, and ride to the top of this mushroom with me.

Friendship Is just Like A Perennial River Which Flows Forever It May Change Its Path But it Will Never Dry Up Be proud to be my friend

Nobody ever thinks of himself as a villain, does he? Even monsters hold high opinions of themselves.

The idea that [Jeff Sessions] is the man who is going to end the progress on the drug war makes me want to rip my hair out, every carefully nurtured curl on my head.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.

One road trip we were stuck on the runway for seven hours. The plane kept driving and driving until we arrived at the rink and I realized we were on a bus.

Science itself is steadily nailing the lid on atheism's coffin.

Even then, our family was extraordinary, with ten kids.

Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.