Because one thing God gave us—and I’m afraid it’s at times a little too much—is free will. Freedom to choose. I believe he gave us everything needed to build a beautiful world, if we choose...

Being unheard is the ground floor of giving up, and giving up is the ground floor of doing yourself in. It’s not so much, what’s the point? It’s more like, what’s the difference?

I believe that you live on inside the hearts and minds of everyone you’ve touched while you were here on earth.

I think people believe what they want to believe.

But behind all your stories is always your mother’s story, because hers is where yours begins.

We really don’t experience the world fully, because we’re half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do.”And facing death changes that?”Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the...

Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with soaking joy. But sometimes, under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots, keeping...

Heaven can be found in the most unlikely corners.

When you come to the end, that’s where God begins.

It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones,...

When you’re rotten about yourself, you become rotten to everyone else, even thoseyou love.

I find interesting characters or lessons that resonate with people and sometimes I write about them in the sports pages, sometimes I write them in a column, sometimes in a novel, sometimes a play or...

Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left? He would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying.

Of course.” When he steps back, I see that he is crying.

Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to.

We all have same beginning (BIRTH), and we will have same ending (DEATH). So how different can we be?

Heaven . . . is the same feeling. . . . No fear. No dark. When you know you are loved . . . that’s the light.

Belief, hard work, love–you have those things, you can do anything.

She was like a wound beneath an old bandage, and he had grown more used to the bandage.

Anyone who tries to write a memoir needs to keep in mind that what’s interesting to you isn’t necessarily interesting to a reader.

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. “”Let it come in. We think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let...

He cried that night for all that he had lost, but he would say it taught him a valuable lesson: that holding on to things “will only break your heart.

Sometimes, love brings you together even as life keeps you apart.

Now you know how badly someone wanted you, Charley. Children forget that sometimes. They think of themselves as a burden instead of a wish granted.

Things change when you’re not in danger anymore.

All who are born are always dying.

The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.

She felt worthless and hollow. There was no hope of fixing this.And when hope is gone, time is punishment.

I lifted my eyes, and, for the first time, admitted the truth.”I gave up,” I whispered.”Don’t give up,” she whispered back.

Secrets tear you apart.

This is part of what a family is about, not just love. It’s knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not...

When we are most alone is when we embrace another’s loneliness.

It is far more comforting to think God listened and said no, than to think that nobody’s out there.

Tell me about your family,” I said. And so she did. I listened intently as my mother went through each branch of the tree. Years later, after the funeral, Maria had asked me questions about...

The more you defend a lie, the angrier you become.

People who don’t normally read make an exception for my books, possibly because they’re short.

Jeffrey was working from the book only. When I saw an early version of the play, I knew I had more to contribute: notes and memories that didn’t make it into the book. Jeffrey agreed...

She loved me coming and going, at my worst and at my best. She had a bottomless well of love for me.

There are no random acts…We are all connected…You can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind…

Be compassionate … and take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be a better place.

Young men go to war. Sometimes because they have to, sometimes because they want to. Always, they feel they are supposed to. This comes from the sad, layered stories of life, which over the centuries...

Look. I know what I believe. It’s in my soul. But I constantly tell our people: you should be convinced of the authenticity of what you have, but you must also be humble enough to...

They teach you, as children, that you might go to heaven. They never teach you that heaven might come to you.

Critics have a problem with sentimentality. Readers do not. I write for readers.

I had to face up to the fact that I had to call him.

We are, as we die, who we most were in life…

Everyone is in such a hurry. People haven’t found meaning in their lives, so they’re running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they...

when he smiles it’s as if you’d just told him the first joke on earth.

Remember me for these days, not the old ones.

What is it about childhood that never lets you go, even when you’re so wrecked it’s hard to believe you ever were a child?