When a person dies, the earth is generally unwilling to cough him back up. A miracle contradicts the will of earth.

Real miracles bother people, like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature. It's true: They rebut every rule all we good citizens take comfort in. Lazarus obeying orders and climbing up out of the grave - now there's a miracle, and you can bet it upset a lot of folks who were standing around at the time. When a person dies, the earth is generally unwilling to cough him back up. A miracle contradicts the will of the earth.

Fair is whatever God wants to do.

Once in my life I knew a grief so hard I could actually hear it inside, scraping at the lining of my stomach, an audible ache, dredging with hooks as rivers are dredged when someone's been missing too long. I have to think my mother felt something like that.

I remember it as October days are always remembered, cloudless, maple-flavored, the air gold and so clean it quivers.

Once torched by truth...a little thing like faith is easy.

Good advice is a wise man's friend, of course; but sometimes it just flies on past, and all you can do is wave.