Solitude is the furnace in which transformation takes place.

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.

Poetry is the harnessing of the paradox of earth cradling life and then entombing it.

We share a huge visual memory bank, mostly through painting and other images in history. I think when a modern photograph taps into those, sometimes very subliminally, it makes people respond.

Like a sprained ankle boy I aint nothin to play wit

Michelle is 14. Give her a couple of years to get stronger. I mean, she can play on this tour. If she keeps working, keeps doing the right things, there's no reason why she shouldn't be out here.

I don't want to make it sound like a hotbed of lesbianism but I did have a number of relationships.

There's also a lot of gritty Americana type of bands. I actually have a lot of Britpop on my iPod, too.

A glass of wine often makes me a better man than hearing a sermon.

My mother had a radio show - a Barbara Walters type of gal and was very successful for about 20-some years on a radio station.

To live, to have so much ambition, to suffer, to cry, to fight and, at the end, forgetfulness ... as if I had never existed.

I think you can tell the difference between "swagger" and real confidence immediately. You can smell it, like bad body spray versus nice cologne.