It has actually become very necessary in our time to rebut the theory that every firm and serious friendship is really homosexual.

Life is too deep for words, so don't try to describe it, just live it.

The very man who has argued you down, will sometimes be found, years later, to have been influenced by what you said

You will say these are very small sins... [But] it does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts

God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them.

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

And the seriousness with which the other party takes my words always raises the doubt whether I have taken them seriously enough myself.