Before I met the Jesuits, I’d never encountered another group who thought that intellect and arrogance were treasures beyond price and necessities in waging wars against blasphemers, heretics.

There is no teacher more discriminating or transforming than loss.

Love had always issued out of the places that hurt the most.

Good coaching is good teaching and nothing else.

Basketball allowed me to revere my father without him knowing what I was up to. I took up basketball as a form of homage and mimicry.

If not for sports, I do not think my father would have ever talked to me.

Fierce praying was a way of finding entrance and prologue into my own writing.

Gonzaga was the kind of place you’d not even think about loving until you’d left it for a couple of years.

An author must gorge himself on ten thousand images to select the magical one that can define a piece of the world in a way one has never considered before.

I wanted to be curious and smart and unappeasable until I got a sentence to mean exactly what I ordered it to mean.

Only men who have invested time to become the best in what they do are fit to sit and dine with great men.

The most important thing is to be whatever you are without shame.

The myth is strong, because the need is strong.

Do you think it not lawful for me to teach women and why do you call me to teach the court?

Work isn't meaningful just because you spend your life doing it.

I hate the uncultivated crowd and keep them at a distance. Favour me by your tongues (keep silence). [Lat., Odi profanum vulgus et arceo. Favete linguis.]

Wouldst thou ever roam abroad? See, what is good lies by thy side. Only learn to catch happiness, for happiness is ever by you.

A man is hit by a car while crossing a Beverly Hills street. A woman rushes to him and cradles his head in her lap, asking, Are you comfortable? The man answers, I make a nice living.

Should I pursue a path so twisted? Should I crawl defeated and gifted?

A word is nothing unless it has values and an atmosphere, unless you grasp its historical significance.