Some prayers are followed by silence because they are wrong, others because they are bigger than we can understand.

Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man.

Prayer is the vital breath of the Christian; not the thing that makes him alive, but the evidence that he is alive.

Don't plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account.

Beware of harking back to what you once were when God wants you to be something you have never been.

Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Don't say, "I will endure this until I can get away and pray." Pray now - draw on the grace of God in your moment of need. Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action of your devotion to God. We are very slow to learn to draw on God's grace through prayer.

We think of prayer as a preparation for work, or a calm after having done work, whereas prayer is the essential work.