To love our nothingness we must love everything in us that the proud man loves when he loves himself. But we must love it all for exactly the opposite reason.

We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real...and the hidden, inner person who seems to us to be nothing, but who can give himself eternally to the truth in whom he subsists. (295)

To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything.

What we have to be is what we are.

The problem today is that there are no deserts, only dude ranches.

We know when we are following our vocation when our soul is set free from preoccupation with itself and is able to seek God and even to find Him, even though it may not appear to find Him. Gratitude and confidence and freedom from ourselves: these are signs that we have found our vocation and are living up to it even though everything else may seem to have gone wrong. They give us peace in any suffering. They teach us to laugh at despair. And we may have to.

The logic of the poet - that is, the logic of language or the experience itself - develops the way a living organism grows: it spreads out towards what it loves, and is heliotropic, like a plant.