War is hell, but sometimes in the midst of that hell men do things that heaven itself must be proud of. A hand grenade is hurled into a group of men. One of the men throws himself on top of it, making his body a living shield. In the burst of wild fire he dies, and the others live. Heroism is only a word, often a phony one. This is an action for which there is no good word because we can hardly even imagine it, let alone give it its proper name. Very literally, one man takes death into his bowels, takes fire into his own sweet flesh, so that the other men can take life, some of them men he hardly knows.

You can sincerely believe there is no God and live as though there is. " The Magnificent Defeat
"It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Born July 11 1926 in New York City he is an ordained Presbyterian minister and the author of more than thirty publiFrederick Buechnerd books thus far. " He has been a finalist for the National Book Award Presented by the National Book Foundation and the Pulitzer Prize and has been awarded eight honorary degrees from such institutions as Yale University and the Virginia Theological Seminary. He has been called "Major talent" and "…a very good writer indeed" by the New York Times and "one of our most original storytellers" by USA Today.