The novelist helps us to see things we might not notice otherwise.

Love can't be pinned down by a definition, and it certainly can't be proved, any more than anything else important in life can be proved.

And there's no getting around the fact that all life lives at the expense of another life.

If we accept that we have at least an iota of free will, we cannot throw it back the moment things go wrong. Like a human parent, God will help us when we ask for help, but in a way that will make us more mature, more real, not in a way that will diminish us.

What I believe is so magnificent, so glorious, that it is beyond finite comprehension. To believe that the universe was created by a purposeful, benign Creator is one thing. To believe that this Creator took on human vesture, accepted death and mortality, was tempted, betrayed, broken, and all for love of us, defies reason. It is so wild that it terrifies some Christians who try to dogmatize their fear by lashing out at other Christians, because tidy Christianity with all answers given is easier than one which reaches out to the wild wonder of God's love, a love we don't even have to earn.

artists ... all have a need that cannot be met by another human being.

There is in God, some say, a deep but dazzling darkness.