How we remember, what we remember, and why we remember form the most personal map of our individuality.

Spiritual life is contractual. The sacred cannot dialogue with the unresponsive.

Perhaps we wouldn't eat so much, or smoke, or drink so much if we were paying attention to ourselves. Perhaps we wouldn't talk so much if we were paying attention to each other. All these oral activities are trying to meet a need, and perhaps the greatest need is to be seen and heard.

The reason I spend thousands of lifetime hours creating something 99 percent of which no one else is likely to ever read is that writing itself is the gift.

Story is the mother of us all. First we wrap our lives in language and then we act on who we say we are. We proceed from the word into the world and make a world based on our stories.

We live in story like a fish lives in water. We swim through words and images siphoning story through our minds the way a fish siphons water through its gills. We cannot think without language, we cannot process experience without story.

To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against.