... if fiction does not show us a better life than reality, what is the good of it?

It is only in sorrow bad weather masters us; in joy we face the storm and defy it.

Human relations are built on feeling, not on reason or knowledge. And feeling is not an exact science; like all spiritual qualities, it has the vagueness of greatness about it.

Kindness is always fashionable.

It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.

The fate of love is that it always seems too little or too much.

The great difference between voyages rests not with the ships, but with the people you meet on them.

Time is a very precious gift- so precious that it is only given to us moment by moment.

All changes are more or less tinged with melancholy, for what we are leaving behind is part of ourselves.

Forethought spares afterthought.

Mediocrity is always in a rush; but whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with consideration. For genius is nothing more nor less than doing well what anyone can do badly.

Wouldn’t it have been better to conserve your strength and rest?” Ildiko mused after a moment. “I’ll sleep long and hard when I’m dead. You defy death by celebrating life.

Miracles are not for matured men, they are for children or for unbelievers.

I fell, you see. Trod on my abbot, Father Habit. Oh, dear! I mean.

Quick. Name ten dead redheads.

Even theologians, even the great theologians of the thirteenth century, even Saint Thomas Aquinas himself did not trust to faith alone, or assume the existence of God.

Politics these days is a disgusting game of mud-slinging, filled with selfish people with selfish aims. I'm very glad I've retired away from the hustle and bustle of Whitehall.

Wanting is not enough, long and you attain it.

What we say of a thing that has just come in fashion And that which we do with the dead, Is the name of the honestest man in the nation: What more of a man can be said?

The Holy Spirit is not “the Doer,” but rather the “Helper.” He will not do it without us, but if we engage He will help us with what we need to make it happen

In a perfect world, I would do 3 weeks on 3 weeks off; so that I could always take a breather and come back to music with a fresh mind.