“One day we will finally see that when we reject any person or group of people, we reject a part of our very selves. All are one. All are in. All are God’s beloved children with a place at the table.”

Young people: marry simply, start your life, and party later. Think of how much babysitting for your future colicky baby you could buy with that wedding budget. Think of how much marriage therapy you could buy. Invest in your marriage, not your wedding.

Book tours are super hard for me as a raging introvert. I love humanity, but actual humans are hard for me. So something like a book tour – where I’m constantly on the road – scares the hell out of me.

When folks decide they love any institution more than the individual souls inside them, they’re missing the mark.

I wrote in my first book that I was broken, and now it just makes me mad every time. This is why writing words in books is so precarious. This is why Jesus only wrote in the sand, right? I just – I hate that I wrote that.

We should live out our particular brand of faith, sure – but we should never force our brand of faith upon anyone else. All violence starts with the desire to change others and then never, ever ends.

The Internet is neither good nor bad. It’s neutral – it becomes for each of us exactly what we bring to it.

I think that in order to parent effectively, we are going to have to admit two things: We can’t keep our children safe. We can’t accept the fact that we can’t keep our children safe.

Sometimes when you love someone like a mother loves her child, that love can turn into fear. It happens to me all the time. I am so afraid that the world will not be kind to my children.

The closer you get to people who are different than you, the more you learn that we’re all same.

Making sensible family rules around cell phones and driving is a way to love yourself, your marriage, your children, and the world well.

I’ve never believed in or understood romantic love. Love at first sight was always a complete joke to me.

When we shrug and say we don’t care, it’s usually a lie. Every girl cares. We’ve just been taught not to expose ourselves by showing it. What the world needs now is girls and women who aren’t afraid to care – who are done saying, ‘Whatever.’

I don’t think that I’m broken at all. I no longer think that I’m a mess. I just think I’m a deeply feeling person in a messy world.

You do not have to agree with me to love me.

We can be shiny and perfect and admired, or we can be real and honest and vulnerable and loved. But we actually do have to choose.

I used to choose friends based on similarity in age and life stage, but I’ve learned that those were the wrong criteria. Trying to live life exclusively alongside others our own age is like attempting to climb Mt. Everest without a Sherpa. It’s a little dangerous.

My kids get everything they want and are raised well.

I didn’t want to raise my child in Hollywood.

When you can see your unborn children in her arms, you know you really love a woman.

The wisdom of the Bible writers is more than human; the prophecies proclaim a Supreme Ruler who, though inhabiting all space, deigns to speak through the hearts and minds and tongues of His children.

I tweet early in the morning when I wake up or late at night just to let you know that I have a show or what’s on my mind, and that’s it. I hate Snapchat and all of that. It’s making kids so stupid.

I was an only child and I had a mother and father who were just – there wasn’t a straight man in the house, and I mean that in a very nice way. They were fun, and we would laugh a lot.

I was always the popular kid that everyone hated. There was no reason for anyone to hate me. I never really did anything wrong. They just didn’t like me, so I had to fight back all the time.

I want my first son to be called ‘Tommy.’ It will sound great, Tommy Tomlinson