In the Church he (Lincoln) saw people who, though they hated war as much as the editors did, saw with clarity what the moral alternative was.
It is most remarkable that Lincoln, when he saw so much that was vulnerable in the leadership of the Church, did not move to the opposite error and become a scoffer.
The rest of the time, I don't do so much thinkin'. 'Cuz if I did, I'd go running back to where things is simple. You see?
She did not tell him this, because it would hurt him to know she had felt that way for a while, that her relationship with him was like being content in a house but always sitting by the window and looking out.
But tonight I finally made the connection that change always strolled hand in hand with loss, with upheaval, and that I would always feel it keenly because in the end, I did not live under the same sky as most other people. (p179)
..then he added, as if requiring a response to his own remark, 'Probably the greater the difference, the greater the similarity, and the greater the similarity, the greater the difference,' at that moment he did not yet know how right he was.
He advocated that all who follow Jesus are priests, not just the official clergy. Much of what he said made sense, as did his kind manner. But why was he here now? Had this persecuted recluse emerged just to speak to me?
Why was I standing on the street when the window feel out of the building? Why did the bus run over me? Because it was my turn in the barrel, that's why.
The meaning did not precede the dream; the dream preceded the meaning. So the way to read the tale is to let the imagination carry one along. Not, above all, as a rebus to be decoded.
The only credential the city asked was the boldness to dream. For those who did, it unlocked its gates and its treasures, not caring who they were or where they came from.
Maybe she had some sort of extraordinary quality, secret even to her. Maybe she did have the power to alter the things she'd always assumed she'd have to endure.
You know that saying about how you don’t know what you have until it’s gone? I already did know what I had, and now that she’s gone, I know even more.
So witless did these ideas strike me as being, so sweeping and pompous the way they were expressed, that I associated them immediately with literature.
Nobody wants to be alone in misery. Cara experienced no shame in admitting that need. Not only did she not want to suffer alone, she demanded co-suffering from all who dared love her.
We did not touch each other. We were both leaning over the abyss.
I'm sorry. I behaved like a jerk. You did. Is that forgiveness? I'm not sure. I think it's an acknowledgment of imperfection. And an admission that I believe time is too short to hold a grudge.
If you don’t laugh reading this book I’ll eat my pocket protector. Wait, did I just admit I had a pocket protector?
One of the gravestones in the cemetery near the earliest church has an anchor on it and an hourglass, and the words In Hope. In Hope. Why did they put that above a dead person? Was it the corpse hoping, or those still alive?
Putting a damp spoon back in the bowl is the tea-drinking equivalent of sharing a needle. And I did want to end up with the tea-drinking equivalent of AIDS.
The swimming pool was drained of water. That’s why I went fishing in it. Go ahead, ask me what I did in your empty coffee cup.
Love is a lot like coffee, I once thought as I suckled on a milky nipple. But I was one at the time, so what did I know about coffee?
