Frederick Buechner is one of my favorite writers. The Eyes of the Heart is beautiful and wise, full of insight, charm, and tenderness.

I don't have any romantic views of parenting. Every step of the way it's really hard. It's a dangerous world, physically and psychologically.

Feeding a baby is like filling a hole with putty - you get it in and then you sort of shave off all the excess around the hole and get it back in, like you're spackling.

It turned out this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And she said gently-that they believe when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born-and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible.

Most people's intuitions are drowned out by folk sayings. We have a moment of real feeling or insight, and then we come up with a folk saying that captures the insight in a kind of wash. The intuition may be real and ripe, fresh with possibilities, but the folk saying is guaranteed to be a cliche, stale and self-contained.

[S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve. (68)

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.