Humility is an elusive virtue. The more we pursue it - and the more we seem to acquire it - the more we take pride in our accomplishment, and we find ourselves back at square one.

Part of growing up spiritually is learning to be grateful for all things, even our difficulties, disappointments, failures and humiliations.

The family is the great catechism God has given the world. The work of our lifetime is to learn how to read it and then study it prayerfully.

Everyone should be praised by the lips of his neighbor, and not by his own mouth. Everyone should be commended by the work he has done, not by what he wanted to do.

I'm a hopeless romantic with a dirty mind.

A lot of period dramas can appear quite arch to most people, stuffy.

You count up your dead, every one. Always. Recall them, each and all - every face, every heart.

Oh, how I like those little mortifications that are seen by nobody, such as rising a quarter of an hour sooner, rising for a little while in the night to pray!

Finding clothes in the South was impossible.

I really wanted to do my own perfume because I mix my own oils, so it just made sense.

True victory is victory over oneself.

I must have been about 11 when I read the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, which I read, over and over again.

Sweets grown common lose their dear delight.