Hope is a state of mind independent of the state of the world. If your heart's full of hope, you can be persistent when you can't be optimistic. You can keep the faith despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing. So while I'm not optimistic, I'm always very hopeful.

It is often said that the Church is a crutch. Of course it's a crutch. What makes you think you don't limp?

It is terribly important to realize that the leap of faith is not so much a leap of thought as of action. For while in many matters it is first we must see then we will act; in matters of faith it is first we must do then we will know, first we will be and then we will see. One must, in short, dare to act wholeheartedly without absolute certainty.

God knows it is emotionally satisfying to be righteous with that righteousness that nourishes itself on the blood of sinners. But God also knows that what is emotionally satisfying can be spiritually devastating.

I'm not OK, you're not OK-and that's OK.

Without love, violence will change the world; it will change it into a more violent one.

To show compassion for an individual without showing concern for the structures of society that make him an object of compassion is to be sentimental rather than loving.