“What you hope for, you also fear. ”

“What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears.”

“Resist the temptation to think what afflicts you is peculiar to you. Have faith that what is in your consciousness can be communicated to the consciousness of all. And is, in many cases, already there.”

“The good oneswho listento womento children and the poordie too soon,their lives bedeviledby opposition:our hearts grieve for them.This was the world my father knew.A poor manhe saw good men come and mostly go;leaving behindthe stranded and bereft.People of hopes, dreams, and so muchhard work!Yearning for a futuresuddenlyforeclosed.But todayyou write me all is welleven though the admirableHugo Chavezhas died this afternoon.Never again will we hear that voiceof reasoned angerand disgustof passionate visionand of triumph.This is true.But what a lot he did in his 58 years!You say.What a mighty ruckusHugo Chavez made!This is also true.Thank you for reminding me.That though life -this never-ending loop -has passed us by todaybut carried offin deatha heroof the massesit is his spiritof fiercely outspokencariñothat is not lost.That inheritancehas gone instantlyinto the peopleto whom he listenedand it is therethat we will expect itto riseas early astomorrow;and therethatwe will encounter italwayssoon again.”

“...have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.”

“You are saying, are you not, I said to Manuelito, that stories have more room in them than ideas? [...] He laughed. That is correct, Señor. It is as if ideas are made of blocks. Rigid and hard. And stories are made of a gauze that is elastic. You can almost see through it, so what is beyond is tantalizing. You can't quite make it out; and because the imagination is always moving forward, you yourself are constantly stretching. Stories are the way spirit is exercised.”

“Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit. It? I ask. Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but a It. But what do it look like? I ask. Don't look like nothing, she say. It ain't a picture show. It ain't something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you cam feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found it.”