You explain nothing, O poet, but thanks to you all things become explicable.

Speak about Christ only when you are asked. But live so that people ask about Christ!

Intelligence is nothing without delight.

Jesus did not come to explain away suffering or remove it. He came to fill it with His Presence.

Truth has nothing to do with the number of people it convinces.

Gentlemen, in the little moment that remains to us between the crisis and the catastrophe, we may as well drink a glass of Champagne.

When man tries to imagine Paradise on earth, the immediate result is a very respectable Hell.

Time: all things consume it, love alone makes use of it.

Eighty years old! No eyes left, no ears, no teeth, no legs, no wind! And when all is said and done, how astonishingly well one does without them.

All that passes is raised to the dignity of expression; all that happens is raised to the dignity of meaning. Everything is either symbol or parable.

We must not seek happiness in peace, but in conflict.

A heart worth loving is one you understand, even in silence.

I don't think I'm tangible to myself.

Hurt no living thing: Ladybird, nor butterfly, Nor moth with dusty wing.

My father was a trigamist; he supported three families. We were never not poor.

So usually even if you like a sentence or a story or something, it won't come out that way - it'll come out years later, and in a different way, and you don't really control that.

Sometimes the Lord rides out the storm with us and other times He calms the restless sea around us. Most of all, He calms the storm inside us in our deepest inner soul.

All that destiny garbage. Nobody can decide what happens to you. Nobody but you.

I have to work hard and organize myself so that I'm present and not a slacker.

Let America realize that self-scrutiny is not treason. Self-examination is not disloyalty.

Among the songs I love best were those that I see as historically important, and helped change and develop my taste.