Life with God is not immunity from difficulties, but peace in difficulties.

I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state, but a process. It needs not a map, but a history, and if I don't stop writing that history at some quite arbitrary point, there's no reason why I should ever stop.

The higher the stakes, the greater the temptation to lose your temper.

What one must not do is to rule out the supernatural as the one impossible explanation.

Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? WEll, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments).

Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor-that is the only way out of a "hole." This process of surrender-this movement full speed astern-is repentance.

Many things have gone wrong with the world that God made and... God insists, and insists very loudly, on our putting them right again