I guess what I want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights but also devote myself to God.

It is not we as individuals, then, who must bend uncomfortably around the institution of marriage; rather, it is the institution of marriage that has to bend uncomfortably around us.

The problem, simply put, is that we cannot choose everything simultaneously. So we live in danger of becoming paralyzed by indecision, terrified that every choice might be the wrong choice.

Moss grows where nothing else can grow. It grows on bricks. It grows on tree bark and roofing slate. It grows in the Arctic Circle and in the balmiest tropics; it also grows on the fur of sloths, on the backs of snails, on decaying human bones. ... It is a resurrection engine. A single clump of mosses can lie dormant and dry for forty years at a stretch, and then vault back again into life with a mere soaking of water.

Creativity is a scavenger hunt. It's your obligation to pay attention to clues, to the thing that gives you that little tweak.

Nothing is so essential as dignity…Time will reveal who has it and who has it not.

Guilt's just your ego's way of tricking you into thinking that you're making moral progress. Don't fall for it, my dear.