“There's enough ugliness in the world without having to feel guilty about the beauty.”

“There's enough grief in this world without always getting into whose fault it is.”

“Confession: I don't want everybody to be beautiful, not in that unlined, creaseless, symmetrical way. Android beauty, like it comes out of a test tube. Beauty without blemish or mark. Not only do I not identify with such people, I don't believe in them either. I don't even find them attractive. This is what makes watching television so hard: they don't cast actors anymore, only models. When they make a movie of my life, they'd better cast a character actor in the lead. Don't try to tell me I'm not a character.”

“Gus, its never too late for redemption. The scars never run too deep, so deep that God is not there.""I should know this. I minister to scarred people everyday. It just feels impossible when the scars are your own, or are those of the person you wronged so fully""It feels different when its you""Why is it the good you do seems like a drop in the bucket but the evil spreads for miles & miles”

“I've never heard anyone come back from downtown Baltimore waxing poetic about the authenticity of poverty.”

“Great Drew, you're sitting here about to beg Daisy's forgiveness & you wont even give your own father the time of day. Mother Teresa once said, "You only love Christ as much as the person you love the least." Sometimes I can't stand that woman.”

“I've met the folk that have the perfect garlands and sprays and wreaths, the folk that live in Williamsburg-style houses. And I've met the folk that live at the edge of town in two-bedroom ranch houses that have Frosty the Snowman, lights playing tag around the roof, and a Rudolph stuck askew somewhere on the lawn. I'd rather sit in the home of the atter with and errant couch spring poking my derriere because, truthfully, they're glad to have me, and they never look at my shoes and wonder where I'd been before I got there. ”