Suffering ceases to be suffering when you have a redemptive perspective.

I fell in love with books. Some people find beauty in music, some in painting, some in landscape, but I find it in words. By beauty, I mean the feeling you have suddenly glimpsed another world, or looked into a portal that reveals a kind of magic or romance out of which the world has been constructed, a feeling there is something more than the mundane, and a reason for our plodding.

I know, from the three visits I made to him, the blended composite of love and fear that exists only in a boy's notion of his father.

One of the things I associate with God is a sunrise. How many sunrises have you missed over the years, and God created that?

We have to have positive male role models.

As a human, I am flawed in that it is difficult for me to consider others before myself. It feels like I have to fight against this force, this current within me that, more often than not, wants to avoid serious issues and please myself, buy things for myself, feed myself, entertain myself, and all of that.

I love to give to charity, but I don't want to be charity. This is why I have so much trouble with grace.