"By love [God] can be caught and held, but by thinking never."
"There is nothing that is not spiritual for those who have learned how to see."
"You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question."
"What we’re in love with usually is not God. We’re in love with our way of thinking, our way of explaining, our way of doing. One of the greatest ways to protect ourselves from God, and to protect ourselves from truth and grace, is simply to buy into some kind of cheap conventionalism and call it tradition."
"Part of the act of creating is in discovering our own kind. They are everywhere. But don't look for them in the wrong places."
"We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves."
"Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place."
"I will admit that there are other people who are primarily interested in doing something. I am not. I can very well live without doing anything. But I cannot live without at least trying to understand whatever happens."
"A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep."
"There’s a reason that the symbol of anger is fire—mastered, it has tremendous productive energy; left to burn out of control, it can destroy everything in its path."
"In the writings of the desert fathers there is much emphasis on renunciation and detachment. We have to renounce the world, detach ourselves from our possessions, family, friends, own will, and any form of self-content so that all our thoughts and feelings may become free for the Lord. I find this very hard to realize. I keep thinking about distracting things and wonder if I ever will be “empty for God.”
Yesterday and today the idea occurred to me that instead of excluding I could include all my thoughts, ideas, plans, projects, worries, and concerns and make them into prayer. Instead of directing my attention only to God, I might direct my attention to all my attachments and lead them into the all-embracing arms of God. When this idea grew in me, I experienced a new freedom and felt a great open space where I could invite all those I love and pray that God touch them with his love."
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
"If you are willing to bear serenely the trial of being displeasing to yourself, then you will be a pleasant place of shelter for Jesus."
"No creed or theological system which has come down to us from antiquity can afford to be judged by any other standard than by its spiritual and poetic possibilities."
"Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with the eyes of compassion."
"If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it—usually to those closest to us: our family, our neighbors, our co-workers, and, invariably, the most vulnerable, our children."
Alternately: “You can tell a lot about someone by what they do with their pain. Do they transform it or do they transmit it?”
"You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free."
"We do know that no one gets wise enough to really understand the heart of another, though it is the task of our life to try."