The environment, what surrounds you, is so alive and delightful and complex.

Ecosystems are holy. The word "environmental" is a deadly compromise itself. It's a policy word that lives only in the head, and barely there.

As a lifelong student of the world’s wisdom literature, it is my duty to inform students that “ridding the world of evil” is a goal very different from any recommended by Jesus, Buddha, or Muhammad, though not so different from some recommended by the Josephs Stalin and McCarthy and by Mao Tse Tung.

The principles that will save Earth's life are the same principles that save the living souls of humans: ineluctable spiritual principles.

The bad thing about falling into pieces is that it hurts. The good thing about it is that once you're lying there in shards you've got nothing left to protect, and so have no reason not to be honest

--I truly and deeply wanted to kill him. And I believe I could have done it, with nothing but my hands. But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Peter had an arm around me. "Let it go, Kade," he was whispering very gently, though his arm was nearly crushing me. "Open your fists," he said, "and let go of the coals.

But churches always have been the leading cause of the need for churches.