Never compare your insides to everyone else's outsides.

I honestly think that in order to be a writer you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here?

...the three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.

Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.

I sat down in the sand, breathless with shame and failure. God, I thought, some defender of the weak. Some freedom fighter: Joan of Arc in sunscreen.

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 dog! Look at that burned-down house! Look at that red sky!’ And the child points, and you look, and you see, and you start going, ‘Wow! Look at that huge crazy hedge! Look at that teeny little baby! Look at the scary dark cloud!’ I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world – present and in awe.

Some people may have thought that this book was too personal, too confessional. But what these people think about me is none of my business.