Pastor Veronica told the story of a sparrow lying in the street with its legs straight up in the air, straining. a warhorse walks up to it, and says, 'What on earth are you doing?' The sparrow replies, 'I heard the sky was falling, and I wanted to help.'The warhorse sneers-- 'Do you really think you're going to hold back the sky, with those scrawny little legs?' And the sparrow says, 'One does what one can.'

You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind.

I devoured books like a person taking vitamins, afraid that otherwise I would remain this gelatinous narcissist, with no possibility of ever becoming thoughtful, of ever being taken seriously.

... the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. [pp. 65-66]

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

And my fear of failure has been lifelong and deep. If you are what you do- and I think my parents may have accidentally given me this idea- and you do poorly, what then? It’s over; you’re wiped out. All those prophecies you heard in the dark have come true, and people can see the real you, see what a schmendrick you are, what a fraud.

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.