In New England, especially, [faith] is like sex. It's very personal. You don't bring it out and talk about it.

The world says, The more you take, the more you have. Christ says, the more you give, the more you are.

I'm trying to listen to my past, listen to what's most deeply going on inside myself, my creative set of fictional characters, a fictional world - to listen to that world, to search.

Our stories are all stories of searching. We search for a good self to be and for good work to do. We search to become human in a world that tempts us always to be less than human or looks to us to be more. We search to love and to be loved. And in a world where it is often hard to believe in much of anything, we search to believe in something holy and beautiful and life-transcending that will give meaning and purpose to the lives we live.

In the entire history of the universe, let alone in your own history, there has never been another day just like today, and there will never be another just like it again. Today is the point to which all your yesterdays have been leading since the hour of your birth. It is the point from which all your tomorrows will proceed until the hour of your death. If you were aware of how precious today is, you could hardly live through it. Unless you are aware of how precious it is, you can hardly be said to be living at all.

One of the blunders religious people are particularly fond of making is the attempt to be more spiritual than God

People will buy snake oil from anybody who seems to be selling it in a persuasive way.