The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it.

Fireproof doesn't mean that a fire will never come, but that when it comes you'll be able to withstand it.

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

It was like having a box of chocolates shut in the bedroom drawer. Until the box was empty it occupied the mind too much.

Oh, it's not done,' I said, 'but neither is adultery or theft or running away from the enemy's fire. The not done things are done every day, Henry. It's part of modern life. I've done most of them myself.

I wondered whether she would consent to sleep with me that night if Pyle never came, but I knew that when I had smoked four pipes I would no longer want her.

There I go again. I want. I don't want. If I could love You, I could love Henry. God was made man. He was Henry with his astigmatism, Richard with his spots, not only Maurice. If I could love a leper's sores, couldn't I love the boringness of Henry? But I'd turn from the leper if he were here, I suppose, as I shut myself away from Henry. I want the dramatic always. I imagine I'm ready for the pain of your nails... Dear God, I'm no use. I'm still the same bitch and fake. Clear me out of the way.

I read a story about an old gentlemen who was known for his godly life. Someone asked him one day, "What do you do when you are tempted, old man?" He replied, "I just look up to Heaven and say, 'Lord, your property is in danger.'

There is no single, all-determinative divine will that coercively steers all things, and hence there is here no supposition that evil agents and events have a secret divine motive behind them. Hence too, one need not agonize over what ultimately good, transcendent divine purpose might be served by any particular evil event.

We can acknowledge that while all good things in creation come from God (James 1:17), all evil in creation comes from wills other than that of God. God allows evil to take place because he desires humans to have the potential to love, and for this they must be free. But in no sense does he will their evil.

The greatest miracle of omnipotence was in creating beings who had the potential to resist it.

The worst part of success is, to me, adapting to it. It's scary.