I am grateful for all those dark years, even though in retrospect they seem like a long, bitter prayer that was answered finally.

Love is holy because it is like grace--the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.

Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life.

Every sorrow suggests a thousand songs and every song recalls a thousand sorrows and so they are infinite in number and all the same.

We are part of a mystery, a splendid mystery within which we must attempt to orient ourselves if we are to have a sense of our own nature.

This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.

There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.

Ordinary things have always seemed numinous to me

When we did not move or speak, there was no proof that we were there at all.

Because, once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise. Loneliness is an absolute discovery.

There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, everyone of them sufficient

Who you are and what you believe in is your real home, the only home no one can take from you, the only home that will last.

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

Some men may be snared by beauty alone, but none can be held except by virtue and compliance.

I believe that writing for me is in a way like wisdom; in that as soon as you feel like you've got it figured out you stop growing and maybe even lose something.

What's poetry? It's not real but maybe it's more than real. It's dreaming while you're awake.

The worst thing you can do is allow a coalition to determine what your mission is.

There are far more statues of soldiers out there than there are of civilians.

The Providence that watches over the affairs of men works out of their mistakes, at times, a healthier issue than could have been accomplished by their wisest forethought.

If traditional marriage is not the law of the land, the institution of the family will cease to exist.

There's no such thing as failure - just waiting for success.