You know the old adage: Plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.

I want to have a lasting experience with God. Sometimes I feel like I understand the divinity of this world, but then I loose it because I get distracted by my petty desires and fears. I want to be with God all the time. But I don't want to be a monk, or totally give up worldly pleasures. I guess what I want to learn is how to leave in this world and enjoy its delights, but also elevate myself to God.

At the end of the day I am a writer, and if I don't take care of this, no one else will.

You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light.

We search for happiness everywhere, but we are like Tolstoy's fabled beggar who spent his life sitting on a pot of gold, under him the whole time. Your treasure--your perfection--is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the buy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart.

I'm not a big Austen reader. I wouldn't say I dislike her, but if I had to choose between her and Eliot to bring to a desert island, it would definitely be Eliot.

We set up one rule in our house, which is, 'Guests of guests cannot bring guests.' That rule was required because that happened one weekend, and we finally said, 'Okay, you know what? That's a little too much.'