To be bored to death is a form of suicide.

You hear as many things as you would imagine. I hear voices of people I loved once. I hear moments that took place. I hear silences.

Here and there and not just in books we catch glimpses of a world of once upon a time and they lived happily ever after, of a world where there is a wizard to give courage and a heart, an angel with a white stone that has written on it our true and secret name, and it is so easy to dismiss it all that it is hardly worth bothering to do. ... But if the world of the fairy tale and our glimpses of it here and there are only a dream, they are one of the most haunting and powerful dreams that the world has ever dreamed.

True faith, a simple life, a helping hand- the three things prized most in Heaven.

I believe that what Genesis suggests is that this original self, with the print of God's thumb still upon it, is the most essential part of who we are and is buried deep in all of us as a source of wisdom and strength and healing which we can draw upon or, with our terrible freedom, not draw upon as we choose. I think that among other things all real art comes from that deepest self - painting, writing music, dance, all of it that in some way nourishes the spirit.

The birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living it.

If preachers decide to preach about hope, let them preach out of what they themselves hope for.