Now, if you ask me, what’s going on is that we’re all up to here in it, and probably the most important thing is that we not yell at one another.

Help" is a prayer that is always answered. It doesn't matter how you pray--with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors. Years ago I wrote an essay that began, "Some people think that God is in the details, but I have come to believe that God is in the bathroom.

I don't see myself as a deep philosopher. The things I write about tend to be what we all have to face, or consider, or experience, that I talk about with my friends and brothers. It's universal stuff, told in my own voice, my own details and truth, which is all I have to offer.

Charles had once remarked that holding onto a resentment was like eating rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.

Her purse was a weight, ballast; it tethered her to the earth as her mind floated away.

Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.

I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and help save the world.