“We think that mercy is a sweeter and easier thing than justice, but it is not so; for justice takes us as we are, but mercy assaults us and batters at the gates of our heart, demanding that we be m...”

“The first good news for all of us, the first joyful story of our lives, is that there is a story at all, and an Author who has loved us into being.”

“Many of the greatest books are like a forest. The best way to get to know them is to wander right into the middle and get lost.”

“For those of you who may be homeschooled: high school is that four-year asylum where they put teenagers because we have no idea what else to do with them.”

“[Today's high schoolers are required to read] a couple of Shakespeare plays...the couple of Shakespeare plays function as an inoculation that is, you get exposed to 'half-dead Shakespeare virus', ...”

“If we loved children, we would have a few. If we had them, we would want them as children, and would love the wonder with which they behold the world, and would hope some of it might open our eyes ...”

“To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.”

“art is risk made visible”

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

“Become a man or woman of prayer...Let your heart and mind be kept close to the principal calling of your life, which is to hunger and thirst after God and His righteousness...Let the thoughts and i...”

“Intimacy with God is not experienced through monolog prayers but through reflective listening as well as earnest petitioning.”

“Worldlings pray to the Lord in times of need, when it serves their turn. They cry to Him in trouble, but forsake Him in prosperity.”

“I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete,The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.”

“Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.”

“The Shadow-maker shapes forever.”