Now that I look back, it seems to me that in all that deep darkness a miracle was preparing. So I am right to remember it as a blessed time, and myself as waiting in confidence, even if I had no idea what i was waiting for.

Of my conception I know only what you know of yours. It occurred in darkness and I was unconsenting... By some bleak alchemy what had been mere unbeing becomes death when life is mingled with it.

It is diversity that makes any natural system robust, and diversity that stabilizes culture against the eccentricity and arrogance that have so often called themselves reason and science.

Most institutions of higher learning in the West were founded by and for religious denominations. The supposed alienation of education and faith is a recent phenomenon. At the same time, neither education nor the lack of it predisposes one to faith.

There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.

When we accept dismissive judgments of our community we stop having generous hope for it. We cease to be capable of serving its best interests.

I was read to as a small child, I read on my own as soon as I could, and I recall being more or less overwhelmed again and again - if not by what the books actually said, by what they suggested, what they helped me to imagine.