There are men I could spend eternity with. But not this life.

The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry.

You can only see one thing clearly, and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that, and cling to it through thick and thin.

Laundry, liturgy and women's work all serve to ground us in the world, and they need not grind us down. Our daily tasks, whether we perceive them as drudgery or essential, life-supporting work, do not define who we are as women or as human beings.

Traversing a slow page, to come upon a lode of the pure shining metal is to exult inwardly for greedy hours.

Any life lived attentively is disillusioning as it forces us to know us as we are.

But hope has an astonishing resilience and strength. Its very persistence in our hearts indicates that it is not a tonic for wishful thinkers but the ground on which realists stand.