It's better to think of my life like that - part miracle, part madness.  It's better if I accept that I can't control any of the things that matter.  My life is a trail of shipwrecks and set-sails.  There are no arrivals, no destinations, there are only sandbanks and shipwreck; then another boat, another tide. 

You are the door in the rock that finally swings free when moonlight shines on it.  You are the door at the top of the stairs that only appears in dreams.  You are the door that sets the prisoner free.  You are the carved low door into the Chapel of the Grail.  You are the door at the edge of the world.  You are the door that opens onto a sea of stars.

How do we remember to remember?  That's a question I've asked myself often since my time on Duma Key, often in the small hours of the morning, looking up into the absence of light, remembering absent friends.  Sometimes in those little hours I think about the horizon.  You have to establish the horizon.  You have to mark the white.  A simple enough act, you might say, but any act that re-makes the world is heroic.  Or so I've come to believe. ~~as stated by Edgar in 'Duma Key'

I looked at the ceiling and wished this life was over.  This unhappy life that had started out so confidently.  I thought I would sleep no more that night but eventually I did.  In the end we always wear out our worries.That's what Wireman says.  (as the character Edgar from 'Duma Key')

Remember that the truth is in the details.  No matter how you see the world or what style it imposes on your work as an artist, the truth is in the details.  Of course the devil's there, too--everyone says so--but maybe truth and the devil are words for the same thing.  It could be you know.  

The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy-the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men. A weird life it is to be living always in somebody else's imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could become real.

Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness that have chilled his faith.

We stumble and fall constantly, even when we are most enlightened.

Understanding, then, can lead to love. But the revese is also true. Love brings understanding; the two are reciprocal. So we must listen to understand, but we must also listen to put into play the compassion that the wisdom traditions all enjoin, for it is impossible to love another without hearing that other. If we are to be true to these religions, we must attend to others as deeply and as alertly as we hope that they will attend to us; Thomas Merton made this point by saying that God speaks to us in three places: tin scripture, in our deepest selves, and in the voices of the stranger. We must have the graciousness to receive as well as to give, for there is no greater way to depersonalize another than to speak without also listening.

You cannot be a man of faith unless you know how to doubt.