Writers write about what obsesses them. You draw those cards. I lost my mother when I was 14. My daughter died at the age of 6. I lost my faith as a Catholic. When I'm writing, the darkness is always there. I go where the pain is.

I do not read the ancient languages, but I am beginning to study Greek.

Pride is the parent of destruction; pride eats the mind and the heart and the soul alive.

And I loved this moment for all it's pain...We seemed for a moment like two parts of the same thing.

What does all this mean finally, I kept asking like a college kid. Why does it make me want to cry? Maybe it’s that we are all outsiders, we are all making our own unusual way through a wilderness of normality that is just a myth.

Say what you will to the force that governs the universe. Perhaps we'll call it into being, and it will yet love us as we love it.

I love the world the Lord has created; I love the mountains, the rivers, the valleys, the skies. I love the forests, the fields, the flowers. I love the mysteries of evolution and dna and the big bang. I want to know the majesties of the Lord's Creation. I cannot close my eyes to all this. I cannot turn away from science and scientific exploration.