It is one of the best traits of good people that they love where they pity. And this is truer of women than of men. So they get themselves drawn into… - Marilynne Robinson

Why were there an infinite number of ways to feel awkward? He believed this was a theological question having to do with man's place in the universe. But when he felt the true force of the question, he was always in the middle of an embarrassing emergency of some kind that paralyzed reflection.

Experience had taught them that truth had sharp edges and hard corners, and could be seriously at odds with kindness.

I don’t really have an ideal reader in mind at all, whether one with or without faith. When I write it is to try to figure out something for my own purposes. It is self-indulgent really. It is much more the blank page that I write for, in some way. I have this feeling, should a problem present itself, that I should try to resolve it.