Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.

It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value.

The love of flowers is a consequence of modesty and an accommodation with disappointment. Some things need to go permanently wrong before we can start to admire the stem of a rose or the petals of a bluebell.

We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.

It is worth pointing out that feeling things (which usually means feeling them painfully ) is at some level linked to the acquisition of knowledge.

I don't think I've ever felt that same kind of peace, the kind of serenity that I felt after acknowledging that maybe I was going to die of this TB.

Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering.

Those sentimental radio hits, with their artificial naivete and empty crudities, are the pitiful remains and the maximum that people will tolerate by way of mental effort; it's a ghastly desolation and impoverishmment. By contrast, we can be very glad when something affects us deeply, and regard the accompanying pains as an enrichment.

We have to learn that personal suffering is a more effective key, a more rewarding principle for exploring the world in thought and action than personal good fortune.

I wonder why it is that we find some days so much more oppressive than others, for no apparent reason. Is it growing pains - or spiritual trial? Once they're over, the world looks quite a different place again.

They wander on earth and live in heaven, and although they are weak, they protect the world; they taste of peace in the midst of turmoil; they are poor, and yet they have all they want. They stand in suffering and remain in joy, they appear dead to all outward sense and lead a life of faith within.

I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, even out of the greatest evil. For that purpose he needs men who make the best use of everything. I believe that God will give us all the strength we need to help us to resist in all times of distress. But he never gives it in advance, lest we should rely on ourselves and not on him alone. A faith such as this should allay all our fears for the future.