We do not exist for ourselves.

I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity ... I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can.

Good moral actions are not enough. Everything in us, from the very depths, must be cleansed and reordered.

What we have to be is what we are.

To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance to a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we can know or treasure as life, as thought, as experience, as joy, as being.

Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm.

What do you want to want to be, anyway?" "I don't know; I guess what I want to be is a good Catholic." "What you should say"--he told me--"what you should say is that you want to be a saint.