There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation

If she wanted to write Christian fiction, how was she to go about it? I told her that if she is truly and deeply a Christian, what she writes is going to be Christian, whether she mentions Jesus or not. And if she is not, in the most profound sense, Christian, then what she writes is not going to be Christian, no matter how many times she invokes the name of the Lord.

To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory.

your behaviour must be such that when you go to bed at night you will be happy with what you have done during the day

You're not responsible for how you feel. You're responsible for what you do

The purpose of the story or music or painting, is to further the coming of the kingdom, to make us aware of our status as children of God, and to turn our feet towards home.

If I cannot see evidence of incarnation in a painting of a bridge in the rain by Hokusai, a book by Chaim Potok or Isaac Bashevis Singer, music by Bloch or Bernstein, then I will miss its significance in an Annunciation by Franciabigio, the final chorus of the St. Matthew Passion , the words of a sermon by John Donne.

Each small task of everyday life is part of the total harmony of the universe.

Sportsmanship, next to the Church, is the greatest teacher of morals.

The one object God had in making you a branch is that Christ may through you bring life to men. Your personal salvation, your business and care for your family, are entirely subordinate to this. Your first aim in life, your first aim every day, should be to know how Christ desires to carry out His purpose in you.

The sooner I learn to forget myself in the desire that He may be glorified, the richer will the blessing be that prayer will bring to myself.

Life is a whole, and the pious hour of prayer is judged by God from the ordinary frame of the daily life where the hour of prayer is only a small part. Not the feeling I call up but the tone of my life during the day is God's criterion of what I really am and desire.