When I'm focusing on what's important to God, I live differently. I invest my time differently.

One works hard to prop up an illusion that sucks the life out of them, and the other works hard to make their home a place that restores them, nurtures them, and gives life to others.

But the truth is, we find time for what's important to us.

The average teen today spends about 35 hours a week in front of a screen of some kind: iPod, movie, TV, video. And a lot of it is good, but a lot of it's not. And so I think you've got that five hours a day of media coming into your kid's head that's creating a lot of havoc out there.

I now spend my time solely on those activities that only I can do, and even then only on those activities that have the highest return. These

Who chooses the schedules we keep? We do, I guess.

We all throw away perfectly wonderful lives because our foolish, sinful appetites take us places we should not go.

The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.

Hardly anybody recognizes the most significant moments of their life at the time they happen.

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death.

the average American household is in more danger from chemical germ-killers than from germs.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? —Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day