Study nature as the countenance of God.

A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

If "ifs" and "ands" were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers' hands

Friendship is like a glass ornament, once it is broken it can rarely be put back together exactly the same way.

All we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

I do not want merely to possess a faith, I want a faith that possesses me.

There are two freedoms - the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.

Those clouds are angels' robes.

The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.

Some say that the age of chivalry is past, that the spirit of romance is dead. The age of chivalry is never past, so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth.

Beauty is God's handwriting — a wayside sacrament; welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower, and thank for it Him.

…it struck Mr. Jelliby that a wide-eyed faery was not a surprised faery. It was an angry, angry faery.

For an individual as well as for a society, there is a gulf between merely living and living worthily.

Belief in ourself is like a muscle - it is strengthened by constant and careful use.

Mental effort, I would argue, is relatively rare. Most of the time we coast.

I am a man. And I am former baby and a future skeleton, and I am a distant future pile of dust.

Certain rhythms just have certain moods.

Songwriting is different from music, although I don't deny now that it would be nice to have a little more background in music theory.

Never serve oysters in a month that has no paycheck in it.

I think it's OK to compose songs and sing them about questions that we don't have answers to yet.