“I'd come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language.”

“A language is a map of our failures”

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”

“Some people think God does not like to be troubled with our constant coming and asking. The way to trouble God is not to come at all.”

“RHETORIC The art of making life less believable; the calculated use of language, not to alarm but to do full harm to our busy minds and properly dispose our listeners to a pain they have never dreamed of. The context of what can be known establishes that love and indifference are forms of language, but the wise addition of punctuation allows us to believe that there are other harms - the dash gives the reader the clear signal they are coming.”

“We have a choice in our response to failure. We can condemn or we can learn. All of us fail, but this doesn't mean that we are failures. We need to understand that failing can be a step toward maturity, not a permanent blot on our self-esteem...We don't have to allow failure to prevent us from being used by God.”