We are shaped by stories from the first moments of life, and even before. Stories tell us who we are, why we are here, and what will become of us. Whenever humans try to make sense of their experience, they create a story, and we use those stories to answer all the big questions of life. The stories come from everywhere--from family, church, school, and the culture at large. They so surround and inhabit us that we often don't recognize that they are stories at all, breathing them in and out as a fish breathes water.

We do not choose between a life of difficulty and a life of ease. We simply choose for what purpose we will work, sometimes suffer, and hopefully endure.

Few things are as encouraging as the realization that things can be different and that we have a role in making them so.

Pull a thread in my story and feel the tremor half a world and two millenia away.

Reflection on the infinite seems to call, almost by definition, for infinite reflection.

We're not in people's faces, but I guess we're kind of in people's ears.

It was always going to be a blues, soul, and rock-'n'-roll thing, because those are our ingredients. That's where we come from, and that's how we write. I think it has just become larger. We've just been able to use our imaginations so much more.