I've always been afraid of saying no to people because I don't want them to be disappointed and dislike me.

There's no reason to keep a piece of furniture in your house that is so sacred and rare that you can't put your feet up on it and a dog can't jump up on it. Likewise, a book that sits on a shelf like a piece of porcelain, only to be admired, never to be read again, is a dead book.

We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands.

I am the planet's most affectionate life-form, something like the cross between a golden retriever and a barnacle.

Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes life is too good to be alone.

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.

I feel like if I were to get another tattoo, it would probably be those two words. Just stubborn, stubborn, stubborn gladness.