For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral? But if a spiral, am I going up or down it? How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, "I never realized my loss till this moment"? The same leg is cut off time after time.

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

The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." There is always something they insist on keeping, even at the price of misery.

As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the 'spirited element.'

It is, of course, quite true that God will not love you any less, or have less use for you, if you happen to have been born with a very second-rate brain.

I haven't any language weak enough to depict the weakness of my spiritual life. If I weakened it enough it would cease to be language at all. As when you try to turn the gas-ring a little lower still, and it merely goes out.

To see, in some measure, like God. His love and His knowledge are not distinct from one another, not from Him. We could almost say He sees because He loves, and therefore loves although He sees.