... how much of our inner substance is it good for us to give to public griefs? The whole modern tendency to agonize over the suffering of the entire globe is surely something new.

The intellectual is a middle-class product; if he is not born into the class he must soon insert himself into it, in order to exist. He is the fine nervous flower of the bourgeoisie.

I hope that one or two immortal lyrics will come out of all this tumbling around.

The Initial Mystery that attends any journey is: how did the traveler reach his starting point in the first place?

I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!

... politics are nothing but sand and gravel: it is art and life that feed us until we die. Everything else is ambition, hysteria or hatred.

Perhaps this very instant is your time.

Stupidity always accompanies evil. Or evil, stupidity.

...in a time lacking in truth and certainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart.

Your work is carved out of agony as a statue is carved out of marble.

I have lost faith in universal panaceas - work is the one thing in which I really believe.

I craved to make my faith as real as possible, which meant being recklessly honest in His presence.

Tightness takes more energy than the letting go.

Always think about loyal not for beautiful, about true not for rich, because if you have your loyal and true, you have your beautiful and rich

We know that all must, in the end, stand by the side of the Divine. There is no escape from it, because that is His will.

Except on their southern borders the great northern forests are not good as a permanent home for man.

I love fashion. I think it's so important, because it's how you show yourself to the world.

I especially love my Moto Guzzi.

I knew I was going to be a journalist when I was eight years old and I saw the printing presses rolling at the Sydney newspaper where my dad worked as a proofreader.

Anyone can believe when God is already moving. But real faith is when you step out when it seems that God is not moving.

It is conceivable that I might well be reborn as a Chinese coolie. In such case I should lodge a protest.