“I liked this God very much because you hardly had to talk to it and it never talked back. Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality”

“The thing I loved about her was that I never felt like she was selling anything. She would talk to God as if she knew Him, as if she had talked to Him on the phone that day. She was never ashamed which is the thing with some Christians I had encountered.”

“Never talk back to a teacher. Teachers are like God. Actually, teachers are God's boss.”

“I'm very much aware in the writing of dialogue, or even in the narrative too, of a rhythm. There has to be a rhythm with it … Interviewers have said, you like jazz, don’t you? Because we can hear it in your writing. And I thought that was a compliment.”

“People never like me and I never like people," she thought. "And I never can talk as the Crawford children could. They were always talking and laughing and making noises.”

“Normally most religious people will talk 'at' you for GOD. But spiritual people will talk 'with' you about GOD.”