I realized during my time as a chaplain that I didn't want to be a minister.

I always had this secret suspicion that I was special.

You know how we make a Scotch and water in this home?" "No, sir," Gus said. "We pour Scotch into a glass and then call to mind thoughts of water, and then we mix the actual Scotch with the abstracted idea of water.

The phrase booze and mischief left me worrying I'd stumbled into what my mother referred to as "the wrong crowd," but for the wrong crowd, they both seemed awfully smart.

The joy you bring us is so much greater than the sadness we feel about your illness.

Maybe we're grass—our roots so interdependent that no one is dead as long as someone is still alive.

I try to live life so that I can live with myself.