I heard once that real love doesn't ask what is in it for me; it just gives unconditionally. It just tries to take the weight out of somebody else's pack, lessen his load, and if it gets reciprocated, that's great, but that isn't what you did it for.

Meaning is something we experience more than we attain. It's like finding a nice, easy current in a river that carries you through life.

I tend to write first drafts that are incredibly cognitive, very rational, very boring. They come off as justification. Like, 'This is my idea and here's all the reasons that it's right.' It doesn't make for very compelling reading.

I don't read a lot of inspirational books for life. But for writing, I think the two best books are The War of Art and William Zinsser's On Writing Well. I read a lot of classics.

I asked God to help me understand the story of the forest and what it means to be a tree in that story.

More than my questions about the efficacy of social actions were my questions about my own motives. Do i want social justice for the oppressed or do i jusy want to be known as a socially active person? I spend 95 percent of my time thinking about myself anyway. I dont have to watch the evening news to see the world is bad, i only have to look at myself. I am not brow beating here, i am only saying that true charge , true living giving, God honoring change would have to start with the individual. I was the very problem i had been protesting. I wanted to make a sign that read “I am the problem

He said to me I was a tree in a story about a forest, and that it was arrogant of me to believe any differently. And he told me the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree.