If you are hoping to find your self-worth and fulfillment in other peoples' opinion of your writing, you will never find it.

I understood that the man I was calling for could never ever come back. Because I understood that the man that I was calling for was dead.

I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me--that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.

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

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?

Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong. It is no wonder if we sometimes tend to take ourselves perhaps a bit too seriously.

Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe.