Ami Alvord

“The lovely paradox of willing compliance with what an ancient prophet called “the great plan of happiness,” is that conformity to law breeds both freedom and individualism. We may think a leaping child, in the euphoria of his imagination, enjoys unfettered freedom when he tells us he is going to land on the moon. But the rocket scientist hard at work in the laboratory, enmeshed in formulae and equations she has labored to master, and slaving away in perfect conformity with the laws of physics, is the one with true freedom: for she will land on the moon; the boy will not.”
― Terryl L. Givens, The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life

“But the fact is, as adults with moral awareness, we sense we are responsible for our own choices. And the reason we know we are is because we feel guilt when we do something wrong. We are not speaking here of the oppressive, destructive self-loathing or self-­hatred that masquerades as conscience; by guilt we mean the inward call to be truer to our better selves. Legitimate guilt is to the spirit what the sharp protest of a twisted ankle is to the foot: its purpose is to hurt enough to stop you from crippling yourself further. Its function is to prevent more pain, not expand it. This kind of guilt comes from the light and beckons us to follow; its counterfeit takes us only deeper into the darkness of despair.”
― Terryl L. Givens, The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life

“What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love. That is why faith, the choice to believe, is, in the final analysis, an action that is positively laden with moral significance.”
― Terryl L. Givens, The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life

“...most writers, and most other artists, too, are primarily motivated in their desperate vocation by a desire to find and to separate truth from the complex of lies and evasions they live in, and I think that this impulse is what makes their work not so much a profession as a vocation, a true calling.”
― Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire