No one knows very much about the life of another. This ignorance becomes vivid, if you love another. Love sets the imagination on fire, and, also, eventually, chars the imagination into a harder element: imagination cannot match love, cannot plunge so deep, or range so wide.

Heavenly witnesses are a tricky lot, to be used by whoever is closest to Heaven at the time. And legend and theology, which are designed to sanctify our fears, crimes, and aspirations, also reveal them for what they are.

The past is what makes the present coherent, and the past will remain horrible for exactly as long as we refuse to assess it honestly.

In order to have a conversation with someone you must reveal yourself.

... every human being is an unprecedented miracle.

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.

Being in the pulpit, was like being in the theatre; I was behind the scenes and knew how the illusion worked.