Grief. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal.

Everywhere, except in theology, there has been a vigorous growth of skepticism about skepticism itself.

A God. The God. One word can make all the difference in the world.

He wondered how he could ever have thought of the planets, even of the Earth, as islands of life and reality floating in a deadly void. Now with a certainty which never after deserted him, he saw the planets - as mere holes or gaps in the living heaven - excluded and rejected wastes of heavy matter and murky air, formed not by addition to, but by subtraction from, the surrounding brightness.

We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.

Knock and it shall be opened.' But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac?

The true Christian's nostril is to be continually attentive to the inner cesspool.