“The man who sweats under his mask, whose role makes him itch with discomfort, who hates the division in himself, is already beginning to be free.”

But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.

The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

We are not converted only once in our lives but many times and this endless series of conversions and inner revolutions leads to our transformation.

Actions are the doors and windows of being. Unless we act, we have no way of knowing what we are.

In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom.

For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair, when instead of falling over the edge, we find ourselves walking on air.

No one is so wrong as the man who knows all the answers.

You are made in the image of what you desire.

When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable.

The artist should preach nothing-not even his own autonomy. His art should speak its own truth, and in so doing it will be in harmony with every other kind of truth- moral, metaphysical, mystical.

Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ.

Perhaps I am stronger than I think.

Others can give you a name or a number, but they can never tell you who you really are. That is something you yourself can only discover from within.

When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest. When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you. It tells you of its unreality and of the Reality of God. But when your mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God.

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?

Martyrdom does not end something, it only a beginning.

As the old saw says well: every end does not appear together with its beginning.

My father had a couple of kids at the beginning of the Depression. There was not much employment. Not much welfare. People barely got by. People were tougher then.

I have been at war from the beginning. I’ve never looked back before. I’ve never had the time and it has always seemed so dangerous. To look back is to relax one’s vigil.

Just when you think you’ve achieved something, you realize you’ve achieved nothing. And still you have to go forward just the same – toward a dream so distant that your road has neither beginning nor end.

You don’t have to wait till the beginning of a new year to make resolutions for yourself. It’s all about loving and taking care of the only body you will ever have. Cherish it, love it, embrace it. Because when you do. It begins to show.

School is not the end but only the beginning of an education.

Let anyone laugh and taunt if he so wishes. I am not keeping silent, nor am I hiding the signs and wonders that were shown to me by the Lord many years before they happened, who knew everything, even before the beginning of time.