Writing is about hypnotizing yourself into believing in yourself, getting some work done, then unhypnotizing yourself and going over the material coldly.

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.

The Gates of Heaven and the Gates of Hell are the same gates. It just depends which side you're standing on when you walk through.

I'd forgotten not all victories are about saving the universe.

No order, no pattern, just chaos. Lots of little universes separated by invisible screens . . .

We never taste happiness in perfection, our most fortunate successes are mixed with sadness.

Without the oceans there would be no life on Earth.

I don't know how to be happy - They didn't teach it in my school

The number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double in about 18 months.

I'm a devoted husband. That must strike you as totally deviant.

Every little thing counts in a crisis.

I've always been a jokester. The things I got in trouble for, when I was little, was always about making a joke or setting up a prank or being silly when I should be paying attention.