Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.

Humans are very seldom either totally sincere or totally hypocritical. Their moods change, their motives are mixed, and they are often quite mistaken as to what their motives are.

No one returns from Christianity to the same state he was before Christianity but into a worse state: the difference between a pagan and an apostate is the difference between an unmarried woman and an adulteress. For faith perfects nature but faith lost corrupts nature. Therefore many men of our time have lost not only the supernatural light but also the natural light which pagans possessed.

I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.

One must never be either content with, or impatient with, oneself.

The only thing one can usually change in one's situation is oneself. And yet one can't change that either-only ask Our Lord to do so.

If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not.