we must seize life because we never know how much of it remains for us, that faith is the antidote to despair and that laughter is the music of faith.

He was sure that he was not the cause of the abrupt silence. His passage through the canyon had not previously disturbed either birds or cicadas. Something was out there. An intruder of which the ordinary forest creatures clearly did not approve. He took a deep breath and held it again, straining to hear the slightest movement in the woods. This time he detected the rustle of brush, a snapping twig, the soft crunch of dry leaves-and the unnervingly peculiar, heavy, ragged breathing of something big.

The functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy.

Nothing gives us courage more readily than the desire to avoid looking like a damn fool.

We are all the walking wounded in a world that is a war zone. Everything we love will be taken from us, everything, last of all life itself. Yet everywhere I look, I find great beauty in this battlefield, and grace and the promise of joy.

There's still a fascination with somebody who can write at book length, no matter what the book is.

Only time conquers time and its burdens.