I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and help save the world.

For some of us, good books and beautiful writing are our ultimate solace, even more comforting than exquisite food.

Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe.

You have to keep taking the next necessary stitch, and the next one, and the next. Without stitches, you just have rags. And we are not rags.

When he sees little kids sitting in the backseat of cars, in those little car seats that have steering wheels, with grim expressions of concentration on their faces, clearly convinced that their efforts are causing the car to do whatever it is doing, he thinks of himself and his relationship with God: God who drives along silently, gently amused, in the real driver's seat.

Grace arrived, like the big, loopy stitches with which a grandmotherly stranger might baste your hem temporarily.

I do not have deep theological understanding or opinion, but I do not read the Bible as the literal word of God.