The world does not turn without moments of grace. Who cares how small.

I’m not interested in blind optimism, but I’m very interested in optimism that is hard-won, that takes on darkness and then says, ‘This is not enough.’ But it takes time, more time than we can sometimes imagine, to get there. And sometimes we don’t.

People think they know the mystery of living in your skin. They don't. There's no one who knows except the person who carts it around her own self.

Pain is not wat you get, it is wat you give.

Life must pass through difficulty in order to achieve any modicum of beauty.

Corrigan told me once that Christ was quite easy to understand. He went where He was supposed to go. He stayed where He was needed. He took little or nothing along, a pair of sandals, a bit of a shirt, a few odds and ends to stave off the loneliness. He never rejected the world. If He had rejected it, He would have been rejecting mystery. And if He rejected mystery, He would have been rejecting faith.

I sit there thinking about how much courage it takes to live an ordinary life.