Before I studied story, I was trying to write a novel, and it was terrible. It wasn't going anywhere, and I couldn't figure out what I was trying to do. It was really hard; much harder than I thought it was going to be. Now that I've studied story, I think I'd have a different approach and maybe I could actually get it done.

Somehow I had come to believe that because a person is in need, they are candidates for sympathy, not just charity. It was not that I wanted to buy her groceries, the government was already doing that. I wanted to buy her dignity. And yet, by judging her, I was the one taking her dignity away.

We don't need as much as we have. Hardly any of us need as much money as we have. It's true what they say about the best things in life being free.

It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things.

The early bird catches the worm. But I have never been one for worms. I am not sure what the late bird catches, but I will feast with him today. Probably porridge.

Instead of asking what it feels like to follow God or be used by God, we should be asking who God is, and whether we really know Him. Everything else will take care of itself.

I can't do it. It would be like, say, trying to fall in love with somebody, or trying to convince yourself that your favorite food is pancakes. You don't decide those things, they just happen to you. If God is real, He needs to happen to me.