Freedom so often means that one isn't needed anywhere. Here you are an individual, you have a background of your own, you would be missed. But off there in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing.

The soul cannot be humbled by fasts and prayer; it must be broken by mortal sin to experience forgiveness of sin and rise to a state of grace. Otherwise, religion is nothing but dead logic.

Whatever is felt upon the page without being specifically named there — that, one might say, is created.

Happy people do a great deal for their friends.

People have to snatch at happiness when they can, in this world. It is always easier to lose than to find.

William Tavener never heeded ominous forecasts in the domestic horizon, and he never looked for a storm until it broke.

The heart, when it is too much alive, aches for that brown earth, and ecstasy has no fear of death.