He wished he could arrange a maiming as a kind of moral lesson

If you presume to love something, you must love the process of it much more than you love the finished product.

We are formed by what we desire

Kids are beautiful, man. And they know much more than grownups think they know. Kids are just perfect people until grownups get their hands on them.

With every book, you go back to school. You become a student. You become an investigative reporter. You spend a little time learning what it's like to live in someone else's shoes.

You don't have to be in the habit of going to church to listen to such a literary minister; you don't have to be a believer to be moved by Mr. Buechner's faith.

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice. Not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God. I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.