Spiritual achievement costs much, though never as much as it is worth.

The mystic lives and looks; and speaks the disconcerting language of first-hand experience.

The spiritual life is a stern choice. It is not a consoling retreat from the difficulties of existence; but an invitation to enter fully into that difficult existence, and there apply the Charity of God and bear the cost.

I do not think reading the mystics would hurt you myself: you say you must avoid books which deal with 'feelings' - but the mystics don't deal with feelings but with love which is a very different thing. You have too many 'feelings,' but not nearly enough love.

In prayer the soul comes nearest the experience of absolute love: in belief it ascends by means of symbols towards absolute truth.

It is important to increase our sense of God's richness and wonder by reading what his great lovers have said about him.

In my relations with my father, which are difficult and where I'm often met by coolness and indifference, I am constantly tempted to be cold and indifferent. Yet I know that this is a test if I could take it rightly.