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

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

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.

Prayer is the center of the Christian life. It is the only necessary thing. It is living with God in the here and now.

2 to 12 hearts 1 beat2 lips will meet2 birds 1 stone2 never b alone2 wills 1 goal2 haves 1 whole2 be in love2 be as One***©Clarissa O. ClemensThe Poetic Diary of Love and Change - Volume 1

Researchers find it very necessary to keep blinkers on. They don't want to admit that the animals they are working with have feelings.

There is a terrible alienation in the ordinary man between what he is being told and what he secretly believes.

Some people say they want things, but when push comes to shove they don't do what is necessary to achieve it.

Men are respectable only as they respect.

The law of unintended consequences pushes us ceaselessly through the years, permitting no pause for perspective.

I admire those old road dogs, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan. That's their life.

I'm a suicide. I walked right spang over the edge of life and disappeared. Splash! Bubble-bubble! There goes nothing.

Me, myself, personally, I like to keep myself private. I have never said I am a paragon of virtue, a model of morality. I simply do what I do.

Writing is an adventure.