... he felt himself to be one of them, who can live neither in the world nor out of it. They are a kind of sick people, whose desire for God makes them unsatisfactory citizens of an ordinary life, but whose strength or temperament fails them to surrender the world completely; and present-day society, with its hurried pace and its mechanical and technical structure, offers no home to these unhappy souls.

Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved

They are universal places, like churches, hallowed meeting places of all mankind.

Time can divorce us from the reality of people, it can separate us from people and turn them into ghosts. Or rather it is we who turn them into ghosts or demons. Some kinds of fruitless preoccupations with the past can create such simulacra, and they can exercise power, like those heroes at Troy fighting for a phantom Helen.

We are such inward secret creatures, that inwardness is the most amazing thing about us, even more amazing than our reason.

A middling talent makes for a more serene life.

Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.