The phrase “through a glass, darkly” on page 4 is taken from 1 Corinthians 13:12 KJV.
“This is a memoir, but please understand that (to any writer with a good imagination) all memoirs are false . . . we can always imagine a better detail than the one we can remember. The correct detail is rarely, exactly, what happened, or what should have.” Quoted on page 4, taken from John Irving, Trying to Save Piggy Sneed (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997), 5.
The reference to “the years when God restored to us what the locusts had eaten” on page 10 is adapted from Joel 2:25.
“The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.” Quoted on page 47, taken from Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: HarperCollins, 1973), 39.
“If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one.” Quoted on page 68, taken from Bhagavad Gita, trans. Swami Nikhilananda, chapter 11, sections 12 and 32, pp. 256, 261 (1944), as quoted in Marta Weigle and Peter White, The Lore of New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), 21.
The reference to “saints who felt like ‘aliens and strangers on the earth’ and who lived through hardship, all the while ‘longing for a better country’” on page 100 is taken from Hebrews 11:13 NIV.
The quote “Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country” on page 100 is a paraphrase of Proverbs 25:13.
“Lord, you now have set your servant free . . . For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior.” Quoted on page 114, adapted from The Book of Common Prayer, http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/formatted_1979.htm.
“‘This was nature’s bedlam,’ he said, ‘an ugly black cage of screaming, violent, fanatical lunatics . . . beating me with big flat sticks, roaring at me, screeching, trying to crush me or rip me with their hands.’” Quoted on page 191, taken from Gavin Pretor-Pinney, The Cloudspotters Guide: The Science, History and Culture of Clouds (New York: Perigee Trade, 2007), 55–56.
“Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.” Quoted on page 248, Eugene O’Neill as quoted by Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (New York: Anchor Books, 2000), 129.