“With so much effort being poured into church growth, so much press being given to the benefits of faith, and so much flexing of religious muscle in the public square, the poor in spirit have no one but Jesus to call them blessed anymore.”

“It is simultaneously the blessing and the curse of the reflective Christian that believers are called to live out their faith in the church. No institution has accomplished so much for good in the world; none has fallen so short of its calling! The church is God-ordained, God-inspired, but accomplishes its work through human beings subject to every possible failing.”

“It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong.”

“The frown again. So much contained there in the flex of a few muscles. All of history, it sometimes seemed to me. All of ours, at least.”

“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.”

“Something about being rejected at Church Camp felt so much more awful than being rejected at school. ”