I do not believe that true optimism can come about except through tragedy.

The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.

I looked at this tiny, perfect creature and it was as though a light switch had been turned on. A great rush of love flooded out of me.

You don’t know the meaning of moderation, do you, my darling? A happy medium is something I wonder if you’ll ever learn.

If our lives are truly "hid with Christ in God," the astounding thing is that this hiddenness is revealed in all that we do and say and write. What we are is going to be visible in our art, no matter how secular (on the surface) the subject may be.

A great painting or symphony or play, doesn't diminish us, but enlarges us, and we, too, want to make our own cry of affirmation to the power of Creation behind the Universe.

In your language you have a form of poetry called the sonnet…There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That’s a very strict rhythm or meter…And each line has to end with a rigid pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet…But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants…You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.