I gave them all the truth and none of the honesty.

We have to listen to other people's stories. That's the thing. And that's the only way that we eventually get to know ourselves.

The job of the writer is to look at where he is now and make some sort of emotional sense of it, not only for that moment but for years to come.

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.

There are no days more full than those we go back to.

We stumble on, thinks Jaslyn, bring a little noise into the silence, find in others the ongoing of ourselves. It is almost enough.

Every man with his own peculiar vice. His will hardly rock heaven or hell.