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.

From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel and densest drama, literature is asking us to pay attention. Pay attention to the frog. Pay attention to the west wind. Pay attention to the boy on the raft, the lady in the tower, the old man on the train. In sum, pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.

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

Listen. Your life is happening. You are happening. Think back on your journey. The music of your life.

Through the power that memory gives us of thinking, feeling, imagining our way back through time we can at long last finally finish with the past in the sense of removing its power to hurt us and other people and to stunt our growth as human beings.

Jesus didn't come to merely speak words that were true, He is the Word that makes us true.

Toleration is often just indifference in disguise.