“From morning till night, sounds drift from the kitchen, most of them familiar and comforting. . . . On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it; it dries the wet sock, it cools the hot little brain.”

The rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunctions, no higher feeling, no friendliness, no anything

“What’s miraculous about a spider’s web?” said Mrs. Arable. “I don’t see why you say a web is a miracle–it’s just a web.” “Ever try to spin one?” asked Mr. Dorian.

Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can’t erase it.

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway?

You’re terrific as far as I am concerned.

A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer… He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.

Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays

It is Sunday, mid-morning-Sunday in the living room, Sunday in the kitchen, Sunday in the woodshed, Sunday down the road in the village: I hear the bells, calling me to share God’s grace.

Habitually creative people are prepared to be lucky.

Salutations; it’s just my fancy way of saying hello or good morning

Nationalism has two fatal charms for its devotees: It presupposes local self-sufficiency, which is a pleasant and desirable condition, and it suggests, very subtly, a certain personal superiority by reason of one’s belonging to a place which is definable and familiar, as against a place that is strange, remote.

Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.

Most people think of peace as a state of Nothing Bad Happening, or Nothing Much Happening. Yet if peace is to overtake us and make us the gift of serenity and well-being, it will have to be the state of Something Good Happening.

Be obscure clearly! Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand.

I am still encouraged to go on. I wouldn’t know where else to go.

When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.

True self-discovery begins where your comfort zone ends.

Tell us please, what treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?”….I met his gaze and I did not blink. “Words of comfort,” I said to my father.

For death betimes is comfort, not dismay, and who can rightly die needs no delay.

If it were possible to meet the Beloved while laughing and in a state of comfort, why should one suffer the anguish of separation?

Pray to God that your attachment to such transitory things as wealth, name, and creature comforts may become less and less every day.

Let no day slip over without some comfort received from the mouth of God.

Anyone can live contentedly in circumstances of ease and comfort, health and well-being gratification and felicit

Take something from yourself, to give to another, that is humane and gentle and never takes away as much comfort as it brings again.