“Striving to convey to this beloved audience of one what was going on around me during those five years, I learned the power of language to map a life, to overcome a distance, to focus attention on ...”

“What laid me low was no mystical vision, no message from God, but a blow of compassion. In a wakeful mind, no force is more terrible, or precious.”

“Saints and bodhisattvas may achieve what Christians call mystical union or Buddhists call satori--a perpetual awareness of the force at the heart of the heart of things. For these enlightened few, ...”

“I sometimes wonder if all other animals, all plants, maybe even stars and rivers and rocks, dwell in steady awareness of God, while humans alone, afflicted with self-consciousness, imagine ourselve...”

“...Nature has its unexpected and unappreciated mercies.”

“Night is a time of rigor, but also of mercy. There are truths which one can see only when its dark”

“She kissed their knife marred bodies, for every act of war has, at its heart, an act of mercy.”

“How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.”

“The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.”

“The Holy Spirit alone can do this, the Holy Spirit alone can establish this link with one's neighbor.”