Success isn't about acquiring things, it's about discovering your life purpose and following the call

As far as we know, we are the only species on the planet who have been given the gift-or curse, perhaps-of awareness about our own mortality. Everything here eventually dies; we're just the lucky ones who get to think about this fact every day.

Destiny, I feel, is also a relationship - a play between divine grace and willful self-effort.

Our relationship now thoroughly ruined, with even civility destroyed between us, all I wanted anymore was the door.

It used to be that god was revealed in the wonders of nature; now God was being challenged by those same wonders. Scholars were now required to choose one side or the other.

Real, sane, mature love—the kind that pays the mortgage year after year and picks up the kids after school—is not based on infatuation but on affection and respect.

Venice is beautiful, but like a Bergman movie is beautiful; you can admire it, but you don't really want to live in it.