The rule of the universe is that others can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, and one can paddle every canoe except one's own.

God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when he catches us, as it were, off our guard.

I'd sooner live among people who don't cheat at cards than among people who are earnest about not cheating at cards.

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.

Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle.

Enemy-occupied territory---that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.

I sometimes think that shame, mere awkward, senseless shame, does as much towards preventing good acts and straightforward happiness as any of our vices can do.