It's all so verbal in the Protestant church. You've heard these words a million times before. Maybe people are leaving the church because they find the church has nothing that they're looking for.

The other day, the way people [do] who are approaching their 80th birthday, I was thinking about all the last business - funerals and where do you want to be buried - and I thought if anything were to be inscribed on my tombstone, I said let it be that.

Justice is the grammar of things. Mercy is the poetry of things.

Lust is the craving for salt of a man who is dying of thirst.

For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning - not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach home at last.

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.

No words come easily to my lips. I think ultimately - what I like to think is that I'm in some sense hearing the mystery itself.