I am an Aries. Although I do not believe in astrology, I think this is exactly the right sign to have been born under.

Dogs are the closest we come to knowing the divine love of God on this side of eternity.

I am all the ages I've ever been.

These days cry out, as never before, for us to pay attention, so we can move through them and get our joy and pride back.

Little by little, in telling Sam all these details, I got to see the bigger point of baseball, that it can give us back ourselves. We’re a crowd animal, a highly gregarious, communicative species, but the culture and the age and all the fear that fills our days have put almost everyone into little boxes, each of us all alone. But baseball, if we love it, gives us back our place in the crowd. It restores us.

A priest friend of mine has cautioned me away from the standard God of our childhoods, who loves you and guides you and then, if you are bad, roasts you: God as a high school principal in a gray suit who never remembered your name but is always leafing unhappily through your files.

Raising a child, whether or not it is yours, is like Nautilus of the heart and soul.