When I was first approached about doing an autobiography, I said, 'absolutely not.' But when I sat down, memories came pouring out. It wrote very quickly - I think there was an emotional impulse, because once I started in, the story itself carried me along. It was a very intense writing period and took a year and change to finish.

It's important always to have a sense of wonder.

I think everybody encounters difficulty. It's just more pitched in some people.

Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself.

Non-violence is the essence of the entire Buddha's teaching, and the practice of non-violence is the entire essence of the practice of Buddha dharma, Buddhist spirituality, in one's life.

The people I grew up around, almost all of them had been born and raised in the South. And, you know, they didn't always go to church, but they lived their lives as if God were watching everything they did.

I believe that the interior life is the same for all of us. And because they're steeped in faith, Irish-American Catholics are a people who have a language for the examined life.

America, North and South, is a choice land, a land reserved for God's own purposes.