We cannot live without the knowledge that someone cares about us.

When a mentally retarded child is born, the religious question we often ask is, "Why does God let this happen?" The better question to pose is to ask, "What kind of community should we be so that mental retardation isn't a barrier to the enjoyment of one's full humanity?"

I am convinced that it is not the fear of death, of our lives ending, that haunts our sleep so much as the fear that as far as the world is concerned, we might as well never have lived.

When your life is filled with the desire to see the holiness in everyday life, something magical happens: Ordinary life becomes extraordinary, and the very process of life begins to nourish your soul.

Seek something outside your nine-to-five job as an additional source of fulfillment and as a way to feel the joy of helping others.

I believe that God is totally moral, but nature, one of God's creatures, is not moral. Nature is blind.

In all my years of counselling those near death, I've yet to hear anyone say they wish they had spent more time at the office