One of the things I love about our source text as Christians, the Bible, is that it teaches us not to avoid conflict. And it teaches us that before the fall of man, in Paradise, there was conflict. God wants conflict to be a part of your life.

Often people ask how I manage to be happy despite having no arms and no legs. The quick answer is that I have a choice. I can be angry about not having limbs, or I can be thankful that I have a purpose. I chose gratitude.

Thinking of the dismissal by Leicester, the first thing that comes to mind is a sense of surprise even more than of bitterness.

When you're in school, every little mistake is a permanent crack in your windshield. But in the real world, if you're not swerving around and hitting the guard rails every now and then, you're not going fast enough. Your biggest risk isn't failing; it's getting too comfortable.

As a heterosexual ballet dancer, you develop a thick skin.

It is possible to suffer and despair an entire lifetime and still not give up the art of laughter.

Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.

The growth of love is not a straight line, but a series of hills and valleys.

If you're too happy about anything, fate usually gives you a good sock in the jaw and knocks you down.

Aeschylus writes, In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.

We human beings grow through our failures, not our virtues.

The part of us that has to be burned away is something like the deadwood on the bush; it has to go, to be burned in the terrible fire of reality, until there is nothing left but . . . what we are meant to be.