Envy is the consuming desire to have everybody else as unsuccessful as you are.

I don't know how to save my own life, so anything they've found in what I've written that saved theirs - I can't take responsibility for it.

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

The past is the place we view the present from as much as the other way around.

Unbelief is as much of a choice as belief is. What makes it in many ways more appealing is that whereas to believe in something requires some measure of understanding and effort, not to believe doesn't require much of anything at all.

To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness - especially in the wilderness - you shall love him.

Your vocation lies in the intersection of the world's deep need and your deep joy.