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

Over and over again mediocrity is promoted because real worth isn't to be found.

In middle age we are apt to reach the horrifying conclusion that all sorrow, all pain, all passionate regret and loss and bitter disillusionment are self-made

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

They are fruit and transport: ripening melons, prairie schooners journeying under full sail.

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

The Christian religion asks us to put our trust not in ideas, and certainly not in ideologies, but in a God Who was vulnerable enough to become human and die, and Who desires to be present to us in our ordinary circumstances.