“Nothing makes us love something more than the loss of it.”

“It is our ability to love that makes us most like the Creator…but to love in the face of loss and pain makes us more like God than ever.”

“Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people really talk, make paltry human enterprises seem important. Singers and musicians show us human beings making sounds far more lovely than human beings really make. Architects give us temples in which something marvelous is obviously going on. Actually, practically nothing is going on.”

“This is what making love must be like, she thinks. At twelve years old, she understands little more than that it will begin with loss - the loss of virginity, the loss of innocence - but that at some point there stands to be a gain.”

“There is nothing we could ever do to make God love us more; there is nothing we can do to make Him love us less.”

“Nothing makes us more vulnerable than loneliness except greed.”