Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.

The slogan of Hell: Eat or be eaten. The slogan of Heaven: Eat and be eaten.

The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.

In Brueghel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster, the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green water, And the expensive ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Poetry is the only art people haven't learned to consume like soup.

A dead man who never caused others to die seldom rates a statue.

When one looks into the window of a store which sells devotional art objects, one can't help wishing the iconoclasts had won.