Christianity is a strangely cheery religion.

You will have found Christ when you are concerned with other people’s sufferings and not your own.

You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd.

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul.

Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.

...you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.

What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.

[To] know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility . . .

It is the business of the artist to uncover the strangeness of truth

I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.

Music is happiness with a steady pulse.

The mind and the spirit can be detached from the physical body in deep meditation. Once the mind and spirit get detached from the physical body, the inner process of life becomes clear to you.

First thought, best thought. I live by that when I make my own music.

Finally, it occurs to me that the biggest problem with our elections is that however you vote, you wind up electing a politician.

In the flesh rather than the work of the Spirit, it is easy to say we are showing holiness and it only be egotistic pride and hardness.

I'm not full of virtues and noble qualities. I love, but I love strongly, exclusive, stedfasty.

Bringing production to a festival can be tricky sometimes.

Be patient and live with the knowledge that all you are searching for is certain to come if you prepare for it and expect it.

My readers at that time were still men of letters; but there had to be other people waiting to read my poems.

It's not how you pick your nose, it's where you put that booger that counts.