We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin.

In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people's, we do not accept them easily enough.

If one is only to talk from first-hand experience, conversation would be a very poor business.

It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of His presence.

Our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.

Anger is the fluid love bleeds when cut.

The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory meant good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.