The fact is, there are Fortune 500 companies that have been founded during recessions.

The miracle-minded perception would be to make happiness itself our goal and to relinquish the thought that we know what that would look like.

I sometimes say to people who have life-challenging illnesses: "Right now you are tempted to think that if you were physically well you would be happy. But if that were true, everybody who is physically well would be happy."

I don't think that my twenties were any more dramatic than those of most people I know. I was never that bad and I never became that good.

Genuine transcendence doesn't just look away from human suffering and say, "I am at peace, so I'm at the mountaintop." Genuine transcendence looks human suffering in the eye and attains peace because of a faith in things unseen.

The desire for transcendence is intimately connected with the desire for creativity. It is just as essential to who and what we are.

I am a glorious child of God. I am joyful, serene, positive, and loving.