There comes a time when we realize that our parents cannot save themselves or save us, that everyone who wades through time eventually gets dragged out to sea by the undertow- that, in short, we are all going.

There have been times when I felt that I might die of loneliness. People sometimes say they might die of boredom, that they‘re dying for a cup of tea, but for me, dying of loneliness is not hyperbole.

This book is just giving me so much life. Hilariously socially awkward & I feel like I‘ve found a twin flame. 😂

There are scars on my heart, just as thick, as disfiguring as those on my face. I know they‘re there. I hope some undamaged tissue remains, a patch through which love can come in and flow out. I hope.

We don‘t have a Great War in our generation, or a Great Depression, but we do, have a Great War of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The Great Depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.

If you don‘t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don‘t.

I will not stay, not ever again- in a room or conversation or relationship or institution that requires me to abandon myself. When my body tells me the truth, I‘ll believe it.

What do I love? What makes me come alive? What is beauty to me, and when do I take the time to fill up with it? Who is the soul beneath all of these roles?

The miracle of grace is that you can give what you have never gotten.

My faith has nothing to do with religion anymore. To me, living by faith is allowing the swelling and pressing inside me to direct my outward words and decisions. Because to me, God is not a being outside of me: God is the fire, the nudge, the warm liquid gold swelling and pressing inside me.

It doesn‘t seem like being alive is as hard for other people as it is for me. It just feels like there‘s some kind of secret to life I don‘t know. Like I‘m doing it all wrong.

We forgot how to know when we learned how to please. This is why we live hungry.

I am alone. Alone here and alone in the world. Alone in my heart and alone in my mind. Alone everywhere, all the time, for as long as I can remember. Alone with my family, alone with my friends, alone in a room full of people. Alone when I wake, alone through each awful day, alone when I finally meet the blackness. I am alone in my horror.

Our current criminal justice system has no provision for restorative justice, in which an offender confronts the damage they have done and tries to make it right to the people they have harmed. Instead, our system of “corrections” is about arms-length revenge & retribution, all day & all night. Then its overseers wonder why people leave prison more broken than when they went in.

What was life asking of me? How could I respond when I didn‘t know the questions?

We human beings don‘t realize how great God is. He has given us an extraordinary brain and a sensitive loving heart. He has blessed us with two lips to talk and express our feelings, two eyes which see a world of colors and beauty, two feet which walk on the road of life, two hands to work for us, a nose which smells the beauty of fragrance, and two ears to hear the words of love.

I began to see that the pen and the words that come from it can be much more powerful than machine guns, tanks or helicopters. We were learning how to struggle. And we were learning how powerful we are when we speak.

If you want to resolve a dispute or come out from conflict, the very first thing is to speak the truth. If you have a headache and tell the doctor you have a stomachache, how can the doctor help? You must speak the truth. The truth will abolish fear.

Our people say no condition is permanent, Mr. Edwards. Good times must come to an end, just like bad times, whether we want it or not.

The past was always there, lurking in the corners, winking at you when you thought you‘d moved on, hanging on to your organs from the inside.