If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.

Some have paid me an undeserved compliment by supposing that my Letters were the ripe fruit of many years' study in moral and ascetic theology. They forgot that there is an equally reliable, though less creditable, way of learning how temptation works. 'My heart'-I need no other's-'showeth me the wickedness of the ungodly.'

What matters most is that we're learning.

Our prayers for others flow more easily than those for ourselves. This shows we are made to live by charity.

Joy is the serious business of Heaven.