I wondered if my smile was as big as hers. Maybe as big. But not as beautiful.

I wondered what that was like, to hold someone’s hand. I bet you could sometimes find all of the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand.

If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.

Young men and women come of age when they look at their parents and see them not only as their parents but as people. They gain a lot of compassion, and it's easier to accept their flaws.

I wondered about the science of storms and how sometimes it seemed that a storm wanted to break the world and how the world refused to break.

The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.

I'm an ex-Catholic priest. I have such a complex relationship to Catholicism. On the one hand, if I called myself a Catholic it would have to be a very unorthodox one, as I just don't believe all of the teachings of the Church. But on the other hand, I'm an educated man because the Catholic Church educated me. It gave me something that is really important to me. So I always think about my faith. I always have it, and sometimes I can't talk about it, and sometimes I can. I am like an adolescent in that way. Teens are asking questions: who is God and what does it mean to have faith?