Being a good steward of your pain.... It involves being alive to your life. It involves taking the risk of being open, of reaching out, of keeping in touch with the pain as well as the joy of what happens because at no time more than at a painful time do we live out of the depths of who we are instead of out of the shallows.

The Clown in the Belfry: Writings on Faith and Fiction (ed. Harpercollins, 1992)