Maybe it's wishful thinking, this snaggly faith of mine, or maybe it's Miles Davis saying, Don't play what's there, play what's not there..

The worst part about celebrating another birthday is the shock that you're only as well as you are..

I am skittish about relationships, as most of the marriages I've seen up close have been ruinous for one or both parties..

If you are a writer, or want to be a writer, this is how you spend your days--listening, observing, storing things away, making your isolation pay of….

In fact, not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die..

Let’s think of reverence as awe, as presence in and openness to the world…Try walking around with a child who’s going, ‘Wow, wow! Look at that dirty ….

Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good ….

Quiet, deep breath after any prayer is another form of Amen..

The beauty of modesty ... a virtue the world doesn't have much truck with: one ordinary flower in a vase, as opposed to a bouquet..

Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors..

No one can appropriate God, goodness, the Bible or Jesus. It just seems that way..

There is nothing more touching to me then a family picture where everyone is trying to look his or her best, but you can see what a mess they all rea….

Lies cannot nourish or protect you. Only freedom from fear, freedom from lies, can make us beautiful, and keep us safe..

I remember staring at my son endlessly when he was an infant, stunned by his very existence, wondering where on earth he had come from..

... everyone has come to understand that unconditional love is a reality, but with as shelf life of about eight to ten seconds. [p. 110].

One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore. Another is that writing motivates you to lo….

Dialogue that is written in dialect is very tiring to read. If you can do it brilliantly, fine. If other writers read your work and rave about your u….

Mostly what happens in the novels never happened in real life..

The movement of grace toward gratitude brings us from the package of self-obsessed madness to a spiritual awakening..

For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, re….

I guess he'll have to figure out someday that he is supposed to have this dark side, that it is part of what it means to be human, to have the darkne….