If you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think about life, what you think about things, what you think is fair and what you think is unfair.

I do not think that I will ever reach a stage when I will say, "This is what I believe. Finished." What I believe is alive ... and open to growth

It is an extraordinary and beautiful thing that God, in creation. . . works with the beauty of matter; the reality of things; the discoveries of the senses, all five of them; so that we, in turn, may hear the grass growing; see a face springing to life in love and laughter. . . The offerings of creation. . . our glimpses of truth.

A new year can begin only because the old year ends.

To pray is to listen, to move through my own chattering to God, to that place where I can be silent and listen to what God may have to say.

Calvin said, "Do you know that this is the first time I've seen you without your glasses?" "I'm blind as a bat without them. I'm near-sighted, like father." "Well, you know what, you've got dream-boat eyes," Calvin said. "Listen, you go right on wearing your glasses. I don't think I want anybody else to see what gorgeous eyes you have.

Inspiration does not always precede the act of writing; it often follows it.