Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love you will find that you are left holding only yourself.

When he looked at me, I saw my own soul. His gaze broke through all my assumptions, all my barriers. I was stripped to the very essence of my being. He saw all my lies and my failures and all my sinful ways. And yet he loved me still.

You didn't have to be a ma and a pa and four kids to be a family. All you needed was people livin' together and lovin' and helpin' one another. That's what made a family—blood-ties and love-bonds.

Ya see, Marty, sometimes love comes sorta stealin' up on ya gradual like, not shoutin' bold words or wavin' bright flags. Ya ain't even aware it's a growin' an' growin' an' gettin' stronger

I don't keep people around me that aren't family. You don't get to stay. Unless you're eating at the table with us, you're not part. We eat together, we cry together, we live together, we die together. Everything that we do is for each other, and we care for another.

Unity in things Necessary, Liberty in things Unnecessary, and Charity in all.

Love is hard work. It is the hardest work I know of, work from which you are never entitled to take a vacation.

The older I get, the more I meet people, the more convinced I am that we must only work on ourselves, to grow in grace. The only thing we can do about people is to love them.

Love has been called the most effective motivational force in all the world. When love is at work in us, it is remarkable how giving and forgiving, understanding and tolerant we can be.

The work of community, love, reconciliation, restoration is the work we cannot leave up to politicians. This is the work we are all called to do.

Remember, your relationships have not been designed by God as vehicles for human happiness, but as instruments of redemption.

In other words, you can't take the gospel seriously and not take your relationships seriously.