“How easy it is to be compassionate when it's yourself you see in trouble.”

“I thought...it was easy when I thought it was something to do with the flesh. But what I'm seeing is more than that. It's love, and love isn't a sin. So how can God be so cruel as to give that feeling to two men or two women if it's a sin? I've always believed God to be compassionate. Loving.”

“Only from the calm, he said, can you see how to protect yourself from trouble.”

“Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live.”

“How easy life is when it's easy, and how hard when it's hard.”

“You are incredibly wise."He laughed. "Only when it comes to other people. It's easy to see how to fix their lives. It's much harder to see the cracks in your own house.”