Grief ... gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn't seem worth starting anything. I can't settle down. I yawn, I fidget, I smoke too much. Up till this I always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness.

Thus, and not otherwise, the world was made. Either something or nothing must depend on individual choices.

As St. Paul points out, Christ never meant that we were to remain children in intelligence: on the contrary, He told us to be not only "as harmless as doves," but also "as wise as serpents." He wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head.

One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans.

Actually it seems to me that one can hardly say anything either bad enough or good enough about life.

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

We have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people.