“Wherever it left us, we were barely learning to live with itwhen here came Flannery O'Connor and Hank Williamsto tell us that no one has ever been lovedthe way everybody wants to be loved,and that's hard. That's hard.--last stanza of How Step by Step We Have Come to Understand”

“At last, the answer why. The lesson that had been so hard to find, so difficult to learn, came quick and clear and simple. The reason for problems is to overcome them. Why, that’s the very nature of man, I thought, to press past limits, to prove his freedom. It isn’t the challenge that faces us, that determines who we are and what we are becoming, but the way we meet the challenge, whether we toss a match at the wreck or work our way through it, step by step, to freedom.”

“God wants to dance with us. The goal of dancing is NOT to learn the steps. The goal of dancing is to enjoy your partner. We learn the steps but only so we don't have to look down at our feet. We are free to look into the eyes of the one we love.”

“Of all the ways we have found to hurt ourselves, the worse has been through love. We are always suffering because of someone who doesn't love us, or someone who has left us, or someone who won't leave us. If we are alone, it is because no one wants us...”

“One day we fall in love with the one who makes us live intensely and laugh hard and heavy. And as hard as we love them, their friend loves us back equally and we just can’t be.”

“...The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way.Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in; machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.Our knowledge has made us cynical,our cleverness hard and unkind.We think too much and feel too little.More than machinery we need humanity,more than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.Without these qualities life will be violent and all will be lost.”