“The Devil writes down our sins – our Guardian Angel all our merits. Labor that the Guardian Angel’s book may be full, and the Devil’s empty.”

Have you been working on Sunday? Have you been buying or selling without necessity in the course of this holy day? Give to the poor some alms which will exceed the profit you have made.

Humility is like a pair of scales: the lower one side falls, the higher rises the other. Let us humble ourselves like the Blessed Virgin and we shall be exalted.

There were two saints in the desert, who had sewed thorns into all their clothes; and we seek for nothing but comfort!

Our body is a vessel of corruption; it is meant for death and for the worms, nothing more! And yet we devote ourselves to satisfying it, rather than to enriching our soul, which is so great that we can conceive nothing greater – no, nothing, nothing!

If you are attached to the things of this earth, you should give alms sufficient to enable you to punish your avarice by depriving yourself of all that is not absolutely necessary for life.

Upon receiving Holy Communion, the Adorable Blood of Jesus Christ really flows in our veins and His Flesh is really blended with ours.

Oh, how I like those little mortifications that are seen by nobody, such as rising a quarter of an hour sooner, rising for a little while in the night to pray!

Shall we all be saved? Shall we go to Heaven? Alas, my children, we do not know at all! But I tremble when I see so many souls lost these days. See, they fall into Hell as leaves fall from the trees at the approach of winter.

All that we do without offering it to God is wasted.

Our Guardian Angels are our most faithful friends, because they are with us day and night, always and everywhere. We ought often to invoke them.

Do not try to please everybody. Try to please God, the angels, and the saints – they are your public.

Only after the Last Judgment will Mary get any rest; from now until then, she is much too busy with her children.

If you find it impossible to pray, hide behind your good Angel and charge him to pray in your stead.

A priest goes to Heaven or a priest goes to Hell with a thousand people behind.

How happy is that guardian angel who accompanies a soul to Holy Mass!

We ought to run after crosses as the miser runs after money. . . Nothing but crosses will reassure us at the Day of Judgment When that day shall come, we shall be happy in our misfortunes, proud of our humiliations, and rich in our sacrifices!

Just put it to your personality, put it to yourself, and you develop your workout. Cause those books and things, those are other people’s gimmicks and hypes.

A harsh reality of newspaper editing is that the deadlines don’t allow for the polish that you expect in books or even magazines

Books had instant replay long before televised sports.

I loved the photographs of people wearing elaborate makeup and costumes – they really pulled at me inside. I was in that library every week for years, until I was about 13. I had a rich interior life, because I didn’t have much of a social life.

People are usually surprised to hear this, but I don’t really read children’s books.

I read my books aloud before they were published.

I owe it all to art books, chocolate and young men.

Conflict resolution,’ said Nightingale. ‘Is this what they teach at Hendon these days?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘But don’t worry, they also teach us how to beat people with phone books and the ten best ways to plant evidence.