"The practice of the presence of God, though we begin it at special times of prayer, is designed to spill out and over and into all times."

"God is love, and music is the language of love; therefore, music is the language of God. Music is a language more profound than words. How often have you heard a great piece of music and felt that? Great music does not just make you feel good; great music suggests some profound truth or mysterious meaning that is objectively true but not translatable into words."

"It is closer to the truth to say that God is crazy than that God is reasonable. I suspect God merely smiles when someone calls him crazy, but shakes His head and frowns when someone calls Him reasonable."

"The rich fop Francis of Assisi was bored all his life-until he fell in love with Christ and gave all his stuff away and became the troubadour of Lady Poverty."

"High and holy ambition-to be a saint-is not opposed to holy humility-total reliance on God's grace. Exactly the opposite. Ambition without humility is ambition that fails. It is pride, which goes before a fall (Prov 16:18). Humility without ambition is false humility."

"Thanksgiving comes after Christmas."

"The connection between art and Christ is like the connection between sunlight and the sun. It is, in fact, the connection between Sonlight and the Son."

"You do not have to wait until you become a saint. [Prayer] is the way to become a saint."

"Our culture has filled our heads but emptied our hearts, stuffed our wallets but starved our wonder. It has fed our thirst for facts but not for meaning or mystery. It produces 'nice' people, not heroes."

"When we pray, instead of trying to produce love in our souls toward God, we should be basking in God's love for us. How foolish to stay indoors in the cold, dark little room off the self, trying to turn on the light and turn up the heat, when we can just go outside into God's glorious Sonlight and receive his rays! How silly to fuss with artificial tanning salons and lotions and lights when the Son is out!"

"Our conversation with God should be utterly free and familiar, because God is the only person who will never, ever misunderstand us and never, ever reject us (hate us, ignore us, or be indifferent to us). These are the tow reasons we hid from other people, even our friends, even our parents, and the tow reasons we should never hide from God."

"The most total opposite of pleasure is not pain but boredom, for we are willing to risk pain to make a boring life interesting."

"It's the most essential thing of all just because it's not a matter of how you do it at all, but of whether you do it. Like being born, or cooking: how you do it is less important than whether you do it. You can find thousands of books on prayer that give you methods of praying, hundreds of 'hows'; but they do you no good at all unless you actually pray. Otherwise it's like reading a cookbook instead of cooking. You can't eat a cookbook!"

"I guarantee you that after you die you will not say 'I spent too much time praying, I wish I had watched more TV instead."

"It is reasonable to love the Absolute absolutely for the same reason it is reasonable to love the relative relatively."

"God gives us not only the truth but also the ability to believe it, not only the new thing to see but also the new eye to see it with."

"Prayer is easier than we think. we want to think it is too hard or too high and holy for us, because that gives us an excuse for not doing it. This is false humility. We can all do it, even the most sinful, shallow, silly, and stupid of us."

"God makes it easy to begin: just do it! God also makes it easy to progress in prayer, for he rewards our efforts with peace and joy. And he makes it easiest of all at the end, for it gradually becomes more natural and delightful."

"The heart is like a woman, and the head is like a man, and although man is the head of woman, woman is the heart of man, and she turns man's head because she turns his heart."

"Praying anywhere' can easily become 'praying nowhere', just as 'praying anytime' can easily become 'praying at no time'. Everything in general becomes nothing in particular'."

"Stand in the divine rain, and seeds of wisdom will grow in your soul."

"We can't believe what we believe to be untrue, and we can't love what we believe to be unreal."

"The saints, too, had wandering minds. The saints, too, had constantly to recall their constantly wandering mind-child home. They became saints because they continued to go after the little wanderer, like the Good Shepherd."

"If you place [your bet] with God, you lose nothing, even if it turns out that God does not exist. But if you place it against God, and you are wrong and God does exist, you lose everything."

"One moment of prayer, of weak worship, confused contrition, tepid thanksgiving, or pitiful petition will bring us closer to God than all the books of theology in the world."

"Only is a bird doesn't swim in the ocean but flies in the air can it enter the ocean from above, only because God is not temporal can he enter into time."

"The only way God can strengthen his presence in our will is to weaken his presence in our feelings. Otherwise we would become spiritual cripples, unable to walk without emotional crutches. This is why he gives us dryness, sufferings, and failures."

"Go back to Socrates: 'Know thyself.' For Socrates, there are only two kinds of people: the wise, who know they are fools; and fools, who think they are wise. Similarly, for Christ and all the prophets, there are only two kinds of people: saints, who know they are sinners; and sinners, who think they are saints. Which are you?"

"Feelings are wonderful decorations, but they are not a foundation to build on."

"The single most important piece of advice about prayer is one word: Begin!"

"Argumentation is a human enterprise that is embedded in a larger social and psychological context. This context includes (1) the total psyches of the two persons engaged in dialogue, (2) the relationship between the two persons, (3) the immediate situation in which they find themselves and (4) the larger social, cultural and historical situation surrounding them."

"The deepest reason why the Church is weak and the world is dying is that there are not enough saints. No, that's not quite honest. The reason is that WE are not saints."

"Honesty is a moral virtue, a matter of the will. Honesty means willing the truth with the whole of your heart. This demands sacrifice. We have little hope of attaining honesty unless we realize how demanding it is. It demands sacrifice of self-will, self-image, the desire to win, and the comfort of being right.The 'honesty often praised today is usually only emotional honesty with others, not intellectual honesty with one's self; only 'letting it all hang out, not asking what is the real truth. Sometimes 'honesty is only a code word for shamelessness. Rarely does it mean the absolute, fanatical, selfless love of truth."

"Pilate's skeptical sneer 'What is truth?' was addressed to Truth Himself, standing there right in front of his face. The world's stupidest question was three words; God's profoundest answer was one Word."

"Reason is flawless, de jure, but reasoners are not, de facto."

"Perhaps even atheism versus theism is an example of this principle that an apparent either/or can really be a both/and. For I suspect that the God you insist does not exist is probably a God I also insist does not exist, and perhaps the God I maintain does exist is a God you have never denied."