It is not the objective proof of God's existence that we want but the experience of God's presence. That is the miracle we are really after, and that is also, I think, the miracle that we really get.

What makes me a believer is that from time to time, going back almost as far as my memory will go back, there have been glimpses I've had. Sometimes literally a glimpse which made me suspect the presence of something extraordinary and beyond the realm of the immediate. That's what I think a lot of what my writing has been, my preaching has been - trying to listen to that voice again, to see those moments again.

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

If our pain doesn't destroy us, it just might transform us into truly human beings at last.

At least to look back over their own lives, as I have looked back over mine, for certain themes and patterns and signals that are so easy to miss when you're caught up in the process of living them. If God speaks to us at all other than through such official channels as the Bible and the church, then I think he speaks to us largely through what happens to us, so listen to what has happened to you-for the sound, above all else, of his voice.

I don't think Christ would give a hoot whether you mentioned Christ to them or not. What matters - I'm speaking arrogantly and absurdly - to him is, are you living the kind of life that I embodied? Whether you believe in Christ or don't, who cares?

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.