We are working well when we use ourselves as the fellow creatures of the plants, animals, materials, and other people we are working with. Such work is unifying, healing. It brings us home from pride and from despair, and places us responsible within the human estate. It defines us as we are: not too good to work with our bodies, but too good to work poorly or joylessly or selfishly or alone. (pg. 134, The Body and the Earth)

You may say that I am just another outdated old man complaining about progress and the changes of time. But, you see, I have well considered that possibility myself, and am prepared o submit to correction by anybody who cares about a community, who can show me how the world is improved by that community's dying.

The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don't.

She cried easily. Evidence that she felt much, and most often for other people. A rare and beauty filled gift.

As strange as it sounds, broken people are fixed by other broken people. It's God's economy.

Identity does not grow out of action until it has taken root in belonging.

Indifference is the curse of this age. Indifference is evil, and it couldn't be farther from the heart of God. Afterword - On Digging a Well p. 359

A song is a light we shine on others, not a light we shine on us.

Sometimes the most courageous thing a man can do is run back across the battlefield and rescue the wounded.

Indifference is the curse of this age. We need to hear that. Indifference is evil, and it could not be further from the heart of God.

You hang around people long enough and you learn their tells. Pain has a way of exiting the body, and most will let you know when it's on its way out. Seldom do they know what their "tell" is telling you. Most often it's silent. Sometimes it can be loud. However it comes out, it leaves a trail. Jittery fingers. Itchy skin. Headaches. Always tired. Always hungry. There are hundreds, I guess.

I love them without trying to change them. I look at their suffering, their hopelessness, and while I'd like to wave a hand and fix it, I can't, so I do what I can... Climb down in their misery and love them where they are... People would much rather die holding someone's hand than live alone.