Throw away your books; no longer distract yourself: it is not allowed.

The closer a person is to calm, the closer they are to strength.

Just because there's a silence doesn't mean that nothing is going on.

Is anything wrong, dear? the old joke went. No, why? You moved. Just don't move.

It's the unbroken calm, both within and without, that is getting to her. Real events happen to people, she thinks, why not me? And then there's her conviction that they are happening, all around her, but that they're being kept from her.

She stood for a long time, breathing in and breathing in, the scent of the trees and dogs and night flowers and water, because this was the best thing, it was what she wanted, to be outside in the night by herself. She wasn't sick any longer.

Just do your duty in silence. When in doubt, when flat on your back, you can look at the ceiling. Who knows what you may see, up there? Funeral wreaths and angels, constellations of dust, stellar or otherwise, the puzzles of spiders. There's always something to occupy the inquiring mind.

I say, leave me alone, this is my winter, I will stay here if I choose.

I long for periods without saying anything at all. I can be free of words now, I can lapse back into wordlessness, I can sink back into the rhythyms of transience as if into bed.

I don't want to be left by myself in this room. The walls are too empty, there are no pictures on them nor curtains on the little high-up window, nothing to look at and so you look at the wall, and after you do that for a time, there are pictures on it after all, and red flowers growing.

You've got to believe that God is in control of your life. It may be a tough time but you've got to believe that God has a reason for it and he's going to make everything good.

Contemplative prayer [oración mental] in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.