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.

Science can give us knowledge, but it cannot give us wisdom. Nor can religion, until it puts aside nonsense and distraction and becomes itself again.

What an embarrassment that was, being somewhere because there was nowhere else for you to be.

It was a source of both terror and comfort to me then that I often seemed invisible - incompletely and minimally existent, in fact. It seemed to me that I made no impact on the world, and that in exchange I was privileged to watch it unawares.

Light is constant, we just turn over in it.

Because, once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise. Loneliness is an absolute discovery.

pity and charity may be at root an attempt to propitiate the dark powers that have not touched us yet.