“Relational trust is built on movements of the human heart such as empathy, commitment, compassion, patience, and the capacity to forgive.”

“As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together.”

“I want to learn how to hold the paradoxical poles of my identity together, to embrace the profoundly opposite truths that my sense of self is deeply dependent on others dancing with me and that I still have a sense of self when no one wants to dance.”

“By choosing integrity, I become more whole, but wholeness does not mean perfection. It means becoming more real by acknowledging the whole of who I am.”

“Why does a literary scholar study the world of fiction? To show us that the facts can never be understood except in communion with the imagination.”