I am the woman I grew to be partly in spite of my mother, and partly because of the extraordinary love of her best friends, and my own best friends' mothers, and from surrogates, many of whom were not women at all but gay men. I have loved them my entire life, even after their passing.

I spent my whole life helping my mother carry around her psychic trunks like a bitter bellhop. So a great load was lifted when she died, and my life was much easier.

We all know we're going to die; what's important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this.

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

Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Don't worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent.

My theology is based on what I tell my Sunday-school kids - that they are loved and chosen, AS IS, now, today. That the moment is holy, sacred, and all there is - and that we are only as sick as our secrets. So TELL IT.