“Acceptance means including everything and everyone. It is acknowledging what is and allowing it to be part of the wholeness to which it legitimately belongs no matter what it is. It is devoid of any judgement, and yet it also includes the judgement. It can be strategically located at the heart level, yet this heart level includes all other levels.”

“American poetry has been part of a culture in conflict....We are a people tending toward democracy at the level of hope; at another level, the economy of the nation, the empire of business within the republic, both include in their basic premise the idea of perpetual warfare”

“On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgement and effort to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.”

“Grace cannot be confused with righteousness. Grace is receiving what we do not deserve; mercy is not receiving what we do deserve. Righteousness, on the other hand, includes what most of us would consider difficult matters, such as punishment, correction and judgment. It also includes what most of us would consider positive matters, such as the fruit of the Spirit.”

“In the world “out there,” there are no verbs, no speech events, and no adjacency pairs. There are particles of matter moving around in certain recurrent and yet not fully predictable patterns. We interpret such experiences as and through symbolic means, including linguistic expressions. That’s what it means to be human.”

“I knew that part of friendship consisted in accepting a friend’s shortcomings, which sometimes included his parents.”