Jesus promises a life in which we increasingly have to stretch out our hands and be led into places where we would rather not go.

When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.

Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.

The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it

a spiritual life without prayer is like the gospel without Christ.

Joy is based on the spiritual knowledge that, while the world in which we live is shrouded in darkness, God has overcome the world.

Christian life is not a life divided between times for action and times for contemplation. No. Real social action is a way of contemplation, and real contemplation is the core of social action.

In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien to us.

Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God's incomprehensibility. You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God.

The world is evil only when you become its slave.

People who read your ideas tend to think that your writings reflect your life.

For a control freak, love and the desire to control others are synonymous. Once they lose control over the object of their desire, hostility takes over in full force.

Stubborn people get themselves in a lot of trouble, but they also get things done.

In the end, the Labour party could cease to represent labour. Stranger historic ironies have happened than that.

In politics, the tripod is he most unstable of all structures. It's be bad enough without the complication of a feudal trade culture which turns its back on most science.

Topology and number theory are my faves.

I love movin'. I was observant growing up, watching Michael Jackson and John Travolta. I'd close my eyes, see the moves.

At the end of the day, you're responsible for yourself and your actions and that's all you can control. So rather than be frustrated with what you can't control, try to fix the things you can.

Our internal state determines our experience of our lives; our experiences do not determine our internal state.

Public emergencies may require the hand of severity to fall heavily on those who are not personally guilty, but compassion prompts, and ever urges to milder methods

... if patriarchy can take what exists and make it not, surely we can take what exists and make it be.