“I am officially Jewish, but I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant.”

I thought religion would make me live with my head in the clouds, but as often as not, it grounds me in this world.

The best we can do, to paraphrase Pollan, is to eat whole foods, mostly plants, and not too much.

After decimating several vegetables, I decide juicing is my favorite form of food preparation. There’s something perversely appealing about subjecting an innocent plant to that much violence.

A 2002 Oxford study showed counting sheep actually delays the onset of sleep. It’s just too dull to stop us from worrying about jobs and spouses.

How do you gag the voice in your head that says, ‘You don’t have to [do it] today. There’s always tomorrow.’?

Since I was relatively new to the Bible, I was surprised by the Old Testament God. He’s wrathful, but at other times, He’s incredibly compassionate. He’s not a one-dimensional figure at all.

Paintings! They’re like TV, but they don’t move.

Scrabble – The game is available in Braille. That’s a nice fact. This makes me feel better about humanity for some reason. I can’t really explain why.

I thought religion would eventually wither away and we’d all be worshiping at the altar of science.

Very few people changed the world by sitting on their couch.

It comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality?

I know that knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing – but they do live in the same neighborhood. I know once again, firsthand, the joy of learning.

Giulia Melucci has written a wonderfully funny and moving book. It’s like Eat, Pray, Love, with recipes.

I have little shame, no dignity – all in the name of a better cause.

I don’t believe that prayers actually change God’s mind – if there is a God – but I liked praying for people in need. It was like moral weightlifting. I tend to be self-obsessed, and it was nice to get out of my brain once in a while.

Behavior shapes emotions.

Sometimes your heart was meant to break, so these broken pieces of yours can bloom in a garden of self-love.

Honey, not every flower belongs to your garden.

The dark silhouette of a forgotten rose in a forbidden garden of love; what kind of delicate fragrance of forgiveness it seems to tell my heart about.

I asked god, “why do we sin?” God replied, “The roses in the garden smell delightfully, but in your vase, they rot, just like people in conditions that don’t belong to them.”

Perhaps the most tragic thing about mankind is that we are all dreaming about some magical garden over the horizon, instead of enjoying the roses that are right outside today.

We would grow into a whole garden.

Tend to your own garden and watch the beauty you begin to see in others.

People will leave throughout Your life. You can turn that empty space Into a graveyard Or a garden.