The only obligation I recognize is to say what I believe to be true [ ] and to say it with kindness. I believe that is how a Christian conversation should proceed.

Characters more or less present themselves to me. I don't know their origins. I think if I did, if I seemed to myself to fabricate them, I could not induce suspension of disbelief in myself in the way writing fiction requires.

And often enough, when we think we are protecting ourselves, we are struggling against our rescuer.

There's so much to be grateful for, words are poor things.

The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of morning. Light within light...It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within that great general light of existence.

Memory is the sense of loss, and loss pulls us after it.

The classic theology of my tradition comes from the French Renaissance. [William] Shakespeare was born in 1564, the year [John] Calvin died, and that theology was very influential in England in his lifetime. I think Shakespeare was attentive to questions raised by it, about human nature, history, reality itself. I find the two literatures to be mutually illuminating.