It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal.

I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do.

I can't be a pessimist, because I am alive.

The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross.

To be with God is really to be involved in some enormous, overwhelming desire, and joy, and power which you cannot control, which controls you.