“Bend down, bend down. Excess is the only ease, so bend. The sun is in the tree.Put your mouth on mine. Bend down beam & slash, for Dread is dreamed-up-scenes of what comes after death. Is being fled from what bends down in pain. The elbow bends in the brain, lifts the cup.The worst is yet to dream you up,so bend down the intrigueyou dreamed. Flee the hayneedle in the brain's tree.Excess allures by leaps. Stars burn clean. Oriole bitches and gleams. Dread is the fear of beinglessforever. So bend. Bend down and kiss what you see.”

“But what is a dream, Conor O'Malley? the monster said, bending down so it's face was close to Conor's. Who is to say that it is not everything else that is the dream?”

“Love is not a feeling in your chest; it is bending down to wash another's feet.”

“There's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.”

“We bend. I bend to sweep crumbs and I bend to wipe vomit and I bend to pick up little ones and wipe away tears... And at the end of these days I bend next to the bed and I ask only that I could bend more, bend lower. Because I serve a Savior who came to be a servant. He lived bent low. And bent down here is where I see His face. He lived, only to die. Could I? Die to self and just break open for love. This Savior, His one purpose to spend Himself on behalf of messy us. Will I spend myself on behalf of those in front of me? And people say, “Don’t you get tired?” and yes, I do. But I’m face to face with Jesus in the dirt, and the more I bend the harder and better and fuller this life gets. And sure, we are tired, but oh we are happy. Because bent down low is where we find fullness of Joy.”

“For an apple you can’t reach up and pick, you have to climb that tree; the tree won’t bend down for you!”

“What we end up calling history is a kind of knife, slicing down through time. A few people are hard enough to bend its edge. But most won't even stand close to the blade. I'm one of those. We don't bend anything.”