Besides being complicated, reality, in my experience, is usually odd. It is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect.

A man's physical hunger does not prove that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man's hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will.

I gave up Christianity at about 14. Came back to it when getting on for 30. Not an emotional conversion; almost purely philosophical. I didn't want to. I'm not in the least a religious type. I want to be let alone, to feel I'm my own master; but since the facts seemed to be just the opposite, I had to give in.

Reality, looked at steadily, is unbearable.

We are all fallen creatures and all very hard to live with.

That fierce imprisonment in the self is but the obverse of the self-giving which is absolute reality.

I am only trying to call attention to a fact; the fact that this year, of this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practice ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people.