There is no reason to make the search for friendship sound like an animal instinct. Friendship does not always come as a result of a search; it can come when we least look for it, just as it denies itself when we pursue it too earnestly and with pathetic eagerness.

God, through Jesus Christ, welcomes you anyhow.

Each conquest of distance reveals greater distance.

A saint has to be a misfit. A person who embodies what his culture considers typical or normal cannot be exemplary.

Not only do we cheat ourselves and those around us if we are only glum or always wary when it comes time to respond to divine stirrings. No, we are then also being simply unfaithful to the surrounding reality. The one who purges gloom has given occasions and reasons, in the midst of life's sadness, to be joyful.

I have a hard time picturing several aspects of the modern world without Luther.

Even the cry from the depths is an affirmation: Why cry if there is no hint of hope of hearing?