People are reluctant to talk about old age and death because they are afraid of emotion, and they willingly avoid the things they feel most emotional about, though these are the very things they most need to talk about.

Life can become once more a grand adventure if we will surrender it to god. He brings one adventure to an end, only to open another to us. With him we must be ready for anything.

We do not posses God. We find him periodically.

The most tragic consequence of our criticism of a man is to block his way to humiliation and grace, precisely to drive him into the mechanisms of self justification and into his faults instead of freeing him from them. For him, our voice drowns the voice of God.

We are always looking for a grand program of action full of great ideas, when the thing is to begin by obeying the little ideas.

God's favorites, especially God's favorites, are not immune from the bewildering times when God seems silent. Where there is no longer any opportunity for doubt, there is no longer any opportunity for faith either. Faith demands uncertainty, confusion. The Bible includes many proofs of God's concern - some quite spectacular - but no guarantess. A guarantee would, after all, preclude faith.

Sickness may be the solemn occasion of God's intervention in a person's life.