“We have a name for the sum of grievances and compromises, this sheer normality of life lived among other people. We call it civilization. Culture, society, the workaday interactions of ordinary time.”

“Anything that keeps old words in circulation is to be treasured, the French revolution be damned.”

“(Dune's Frank) Herbert made religion the inescapable instrument of cultural change.”

“People who are easily embarrassed those who blush too often and too soon usually end up retreating from excellence.”

“Cities on the ocean have a choice whether to turn their faces or their backs to the water, lining the shore either with pretty hotels and rich homes or dim warehouses, narrow streets, and greasy pi...”

“People who are easily embarrassed – those who blush too often and too soon – usually end up retreating from excellence.”

“Meditation did not relieve me of my anxiety so much as flesh it out. It took my anxious response to the world, about which I felt a lot of confusion and shame, and let me understand it more complet...”

“All this wondering was the weather vane on top of the building of unrest and of discontent”

“Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.”

“Is there shame in living off your fellow man or being unable to take care ofyourself? You bet. But a person whos willing to work and pay their own waycan at least take pride in that even if they ca...”

“A true encounter with the living God will break the spirit of religiosity, empty man of his pride and conform even the most vile and wicked into a living vessel for His glory.”

“He has come to the most dreadful conclusion a literary man can come to, the conclusion that the ordinary view is the right one. It is only the last and wildest kind of courage that can stand on a t...”