Death is a black camel, which kneels at the gates of all.

The other world is as to this like the east to the west. We cannot approach the one without turning away from the other.

The diurnal sun sets at night, but the sun of the heart never disappears.

Collect as precious pearls the words of the wise and virtuous.

It is with a word as with an arrow--once let it loose and it does not return.

Abu Sa'id al-Kharraz said I have never known Allah May He be exalted except through the coincidence in Him of the opposites. 'He is the First and the Last, the Apparent and the Hidden.'

Some men, like spaniels, will only fawn the more when repulsed, but will pay little heed to a friendly caress.

When God wanted to create the horse, he said to the South Wind, "I want to make a creature of you. Condense." And the Wind condensed.

By reason of his elegance, he resembles an image painted in a palace, though he is as majestic as the palace itself.

O my people, I disavow all that you associate [with God]. I orient my face with an exclusive orientation towards Him, who created the heavens and the earth and I am not one of the associators.

No man can be a Christian and a soldier at the same time, for the two ideas are wholly incompatible.

A fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart.

How do you have to live, I wondered, to be in harmony with what you honestly think?

Writers perform the so-called counterfactual thinking all the time. All the time. For most people, counterfactual thingking is a habit, but for writers, it is a necessity

The honourable are moved, by the nobility of another's sacrifice. The wicked are moved only by causing it.

Our tolerance for forms of religious expression we disagree with is a precise barometer of our own spiritual security.

The most worthwhile things in life rarely come easy, this is a lesson I've always known. The journey continues.

Genius is a word too often tossed around in musical circles.

When I was a kid, I remember playing hockey outside and whenever you did, you thought about playing for Finland vs. Sweden. Thats just the way it was.

Any time the Western way of war can be unleashed on an enemy stupid enough to enter its arena, victory is assured.