She knew that was not an honest prayer, and she did not linger over it. The right prayer would have been, Lord . . . I am miserable and bitter at heart, and old fears are rising up in me so that everything I do makes everything worse.

If we focused on using the opportunities we have, which are very great by any standard - health, longevity, comfort and privacy, endless resources of culture and information - we would not just navigate this world, we would leave a good inheritance to succeeding generations.

The great truth that is too often forgotten is that it is in the nature of people to do good to one another.

I want to overhear passionate arguments about what we are and what we are doing and what we ought to do. I want to feel that art is an utterance made in good faith by one human being to another. I want to believe there are geniuses scheming to astonish the rest of us, just for the pleasure of it.

I do assume that a character or a place is inexhaustible and will always reward further attention.

... but it's your existence I love you for, mainly. Existence seems to me now the most remarkable thing that could ever be imagined.

Love is holy because it is like grace--the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.