“Mine was a patchwork God, sewn together from bits of rag and ribbon, Eastern and Western, pagan and Hebrew, everything but the kitchen sink and Jesus.”

“Sometimes grace is a ribbon of mountain air that gets in through the cracks.”

“Why couldn't Jesus command us to obsess over everything, to try to control and manipulate people, to try not to breathe at all, or to pay attention, stomp away to brood when people annoy us, and then eat a big bag of Hershey's Kisses in bed?”

“You have to be a warrior and say, "Maybe it's everyone else's system, but it's not mine." (from her recent interview here, on Goodreads)”

“Sometimes grace works like water wings when you feel you are sinking.”

“God sent Jesus to join the human experience, which means to make a lot of mistakes. Jesus didn't arrive here knowing how to walk. He had fingers and toes, confusion, sexual feelings, crazy human internal processes. He had the same prejudices as the rest of his tribe: he had to learn that the Canaanite woman was a person. He had to suffer the hardships and tedium and setbacks of being a regular person. If he hadn't the incarnation would mean nothing.”

“My favorite moment in Jeanne Moreau's latest movie--a comedy called The Summer House--takes place in a kitchen, when she proclaims that every human has something to cry about. When mocked by the owner of the kitchen and pressed to say what it is that we have to cry about, she tosses back her head of flaming red hair and says, "The winds of solitude roaring at the edge of infinity.”