Freedom is a terrible gift, and the theory behind all dictatorships is that "the people" do no want freedom.

If we are to be aware of life while we are living it, we must have the courage to relinquish our hard-earned control of ourselves.

The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness.

Art is communication.

When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.

We are suspicious of grace. We are afraid of the very lavishness of the gift.

When I am constantly running there is no time for being. When there is no time for being there is no time for listening.

Aeschylus writes, "In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grade of God.

Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.

Reading about the response of people in stories, plays, poems, helps us to respond more courageously and openly at our own moments of turning.

To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory.

I wonder if it's medically possible to be addicted to another human being.

Sorrow spoken lends a little courage to the speaker.

In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast.

Success of life depends upon keeping one's mind open to opportunity and seizing it when it comes.

As a musician, you just want to be able to do what you love.

I wake up and I see the face of the devil and I ask him, "What time is it?"

I think it's probably much easier to do political comedy from a two-party point of view, in that the majority have some sense of what it means to be one or the other.

I love old gardens best- tired old garden that rest in the sun.

Villeneuve is now twelve seconds ahead of Villeneuve.

Just as Lincoln got contradictory advice from the extremists of both sides . . . so now I have to guard myself against the extremists of both sides.