The true reader reads every work seriously in the sense that he reads it whole-heartedly, makes himself as receptive as he can. But for that very reason he cannot possibly read every work solemly or gravely. For he will read 'in the same spirit that the author writ.'... He will never commit the error of trying to munch whipped cream as if it were venison.

You do not fail in obedience through lack of love, but you have lost love because you never attempted obedience.

We feasted on love; every mode of it, solemn and merry, romantic and realistic, sometimes as dramatic as a thunderstorm, sometimes comfortable and unemphatic as putting on your soft slippers. She was my pupil and my teacher, my subject and my sovereign, my trusty comrade, friends, shipmate, fellow-soldier. My mistress, but at the same time all that any man friend has ever been to me.

Nothing is really ours until we share it.

This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.

If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.

A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.