The turn from this end [despair] to a new beginning came from three things. A blooming cherry tree, the unexpected kindness of Scottish workers and their families, and the Bible.

Jesus' healings are not supernatural miracles in a natural world. They are the only truly 'natural' things in a world that is unnatural, demonized and wounded.

It is only when human beings see themselves simply as human beings, no longer as gods, that they are in a position to perceive the wholly other nature of God.

Christ's own 'God-forsaken-ness' on the cross showed me where God is present where God had been present in those nights of deaths in the fire storms in Hamburg and where God would be present in my future whatever may come.

. . . if we have children. When they are just born we do everything for them. We are omnipotent, they are completely dependent on us, but then when they grow up you must take back your influence on them, to give them freedom.

Americans as no one else in the Old World are looking ahead and are future-minded without the limitations of traditions and can look ahead without the burdens of the past.

Despair can be like an iron band constricting the heart.