But nevertheless, no man who seeks liberation and light in solitude, no man who seeks spiritual freedom, can afford to yield passively to all the appeals of a society of salesmen, advertisers and consumers.

Less and less conscious of themselves, they finally cease to be aware of themselves doing things, and gradually God begins to do all that they do, in them and for them, at least in the sense that the habit of His love has become second nature to them and informs all that they do with His likeness.

But in the actual experience of contemplation all other experiences are momentarily lost. They "die" to be born again on a higher level of life.

The integrity of an artist lifts a man above the level of the world without delivering him from it.

I who am without love cannot become love unless Love identifies me with Himself. But if He sends His own Love, Himself, to act and love in me and in all that I do, then I shall be transformed, I shall discover who I am and shall possess my true identity by losing myself in Him. And that is what is called sanctity.

For a Christian is one whom the world does not know.

I have come to think that care of the soul requires a high degree of resistance to the culture around us, simply because that culture is dedicated to values that have no concern for the soul.

It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not. It is as much as saying that you know better than God who you are and who you ought to be. How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another mans city? How do you expect to reach your own perfection by leading somebody else's life?

What a dire time to be attracted to men.

Whatever you do repeatedly," he writes, "has the power to shape you, has the power to make you over into a different person— even if you're not totally engaged' in every minute!

Any life lived attentively is disillusioning as it forces us to know us as we are.

From him I have learned that prayer is not asking for what you think you want but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine. To be more grateful, more able to see the good in what you have been given instead of always grieving for what might have been.