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.

It's all so beautiful . . . the spring . . . and books and music and fires. . . . Why aren't they enough?

But in order to have an adult faith, most of us have to outgrow and unlearn much of what we were taught about religion.

The High Plains, the beginning of the desert West, often act as a crucible for those who inhabit them.

Men are more conventional than women and much slower to change their ideas.

The demon of acedia -- also called the noonday demon -- is the one that causes the most serious trouble of all. . . . He makes it seem that the sun barely moves, if at all, and . . . he instills in the heart of the monk a hatred for the place, a hatred for his very life itself.

I write what I would like to read.