“You can deny him, he thought, watching his father across the table. You can hate him, love him, pity him, never speak to or look at him in the eye again, never deign even to be in his crabbed and b...”

“So what does it mean for a person to devote himself or herself to, as you put it, literary reading and thinking? I would argue this is a person whos trying to see things for what they are. Whos int...”

“Why?' He kept asking in his sweetly belling voice, its tone as pure as marbles swirled around a crystal pail. Why him wun up the tree? Why him nest up theah? Why him gadder nuts? Why? Why? Why? And...”

“...he wonders by what process virtually any discussion about the war seems to profane these ultimate matters of life and death. As if to talk of such things properly we need a mode of speech near t...”

“As if sorrow is the true reality? Without ever putting his mind to it, he's come to believe that loss is the standard trajectory.”

“Ultimately, culture, secular and otherwise, is a collection of survival strategies. The things that look like decorationpoetry, novels, music, dancingif you strip away all the layers, are mechanism...”

“There is no competition in work. Many a man wants glory but fails to work.”

“Peace is the music of every soul. Our glory lies in understanding, listening and honoring that music”

“Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever.”

“Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything.”

“Peace is a precious and a desirable thing. Our generation, bloodied in wars, certainly deserves peace. But peace, like almost all things of this world, has its price, a high but a measurable one. W...”

“...Next time you're faced with a choice, do the right thing. It hurts everyone less in the long run.”

“I am one and when I am one I am none, and when I am none I have won.”

“He didn't mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn't matter.”

“ The least known among the virtues and also the most misunderstood is the virtue of humility. Yet, it is the very groundwork of Christianity. Humility is a grace of the soul that cannot be expresse...”