The imagined beings have their insides on the outside; they are visible souls. And man as a whole, Man pitted against the universe, have we seen him at all till we see that he is like a hero in a fairy tale?
The process of living seems to consist in coming to realize truths so ancient and simple that, if stated, they sound like barren platitudes.
To interest is the first duty of art; no other excellences will ever begin to compensate for failure in this.
We have discovered that the scheme of ‘outlawing war’ has made war more like an outlaw without making it less frequent and that to banish the knight does not alleviate the suffering of the peasant.
Pure, spiritual, intellectual love shot form their faces like barbedlightning. It was so unlike the love we experience that its expressioncould easily be mistaken for ferocity.
I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that he gives us the gift of suffering. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the Sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of his chisel, which hurt us so much are what make us perfect.
But however happy you are feeling, you can’t talk with your mouth full of snow.
Where I come from, they don’t think much of men who are bossed about by their wives.
In a civilization like ours, I feel that everyone has to come to terms with the claims of Jesus Christ upon his life, or else be guilty of inattention or of evading the question.
Agnostics talk cheerfully of man’s search for God but they might as well talk about the mouse’s search for the cat.
When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the religion of amulets and holy places and priestcraft: Protestantism, in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes.
The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” There is always something they insist on keeping, even at the price of misery.
If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.
The true Christian’s nostril is to be continually attentive to the inner cesspool.
If you could see humanity spread out in time, as God sees it, it would look like one single growing thing-rather like a very complicated tree. Every individual would appear connected with every other.
No man who values originality will ever be original. But try to tell the truth as you see it, try to do any bit of work as well as it can be done for the work’s sake, and what men call originality will come unsought...
First be sure that you know exactly what you want to say. Then be sure you have said exactly that.
I dread specialists in power because they are specialists speaking outside of their special subject.
There is a story about a schoolboy who was asked what he thought God was like. He replied that, as far as he could make out, God was ‘the sort of person who is always snooping around to see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to stop it.’
I would prefer to battle the ‘I’m special’ feeling not by the thought, ‘I’m no more special than anyone else,’ by by the feeling, ‘Everyone is as special as me.’