The essence of intelligence was to know when, or if, to expose even the heart's deep need for instruction.

How inevitable it is; we step into an ordinary moment and never come out again.

I guess this is what marriage is, or was, or could be. You drop the mask. You allow the fatigue in. You lean across and kiss the years because they're the things that matter.

I'm only telling you on the truth," he said. "If you can't stand the truth, don't ask for it.

Corrigan told me once that Christ was quite easy to understand. He went where He was supposed to go. He stayed where He was needed. He took little or nothing along, a pair of sandals, a bit of a shirt, a few odds and ends to stave off the loneliness. He never rejected the world. If He had rejected it, He would have been rejecting mystery. And if He rejected mystery, He would have been rejecting faith.

I write articles, and I do profiles of members of organizations and associations.

He realized that he had thought only about the first step, never imagined the last.