“It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.”

You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.

We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet.

One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time…give it, give it all, give it now.

People love pretty much the same things best. A writer looking for subjects inquires not after what he loves best, but after what he alone loves at all.

I would like to learn, or remember, how to live.

The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest.

You can’t test courage cautiously.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days.

The real and proper question is: why is it beautiful

It has always been a happy thought to me that the creek runs on all night, new every minute, whether I wish it or know it or care, as a closed book on a shelf continues to whisper to itself its own inexhaustible tale.

Books swept me away, this way and that, one after the other; I made endless vows according to their lights for I believed them.

The dedicated life is worth living. You must give with your whole heart.

We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all.

The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out.

Adverbs are a sign that you’ve used the wrong verb.

You can serve or you can sing, and wreck your heart in prayer, working the world’s hard work.

How mundane it is for us to realize that we are all breathing under the same sky.

CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally… Changing that pattern requires a scope, a scale, a speed of change that is beyond what we have done in the past.

Prayer shouldn’t be casual or sporadic, dictated only by the needs of the moment. Prayer should be as much a part of our lives as breathing.

In the end, it all comes down to the art of breathing.

When I’m with you, I don’t breathe quite right.

You might as well try to hear without ears or breathe without lungs, as to try to live a Christian life without the Spirit of God in your heart.

Let your new self breathe.

I like you brave, I like you breathing free, I like you feeling all of you in you.