“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.”

Every time there are losses, there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper.

We cannot make it rain but we can see to it that the rain falls on prepared soil.

One of the tragedies of our life is that we keep forgetting who we are.

The main question is not, how can we hide our wounds but how can we put our woundedness in service to others.

The spiritual life is a life beyond moods. It is a life in which we choose joy and do not allow ourselves to become victims of passing feelings of happiness or depression.

Forgiveness changes the way we remember.

Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.

I trust in you, Lord, but keep helping me in my moments of distrust and doubt.

Waiting time is not wasting time. Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.

My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.

When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.

Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know I am moving from fear to love.

God, help me to see others not as enemies or as ungodly but rather as thirsty people. And give me the courage and compassion to offer your Living Water, which alone quenches deep thirst.

Dare to love and to be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as those whom God has given you to love.

Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. We do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him.

This brief lifetime is my opportunity to receive love, deepen love, grow in love, and give love.

Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write.

And then you walk into a room one day, whether it’s at university or an office or some kind of club, and you just go, ‘Ah. There they are.’ And suddenly you feel at home.

I play the piano passionately and inaccurately. Indeed, I worked out the other day that of my seventy-five years; I have spent at least one year sitting on a piano stool.

Curse us eh/I’ll make you pay!/I don’t want to rhyme all day!

Colombia is not how people think it is. We used to eat fish every Sunday at the beach. In the town where I grew up, people did not tell lies.

Most days now his loss is a part of her, an awkward weight she carries around, invisible to everyone else, subtly altering the way she moves through the day. But today, the Anniversary of the day he died, is a day when all bets are off.

At every hour of every day, I can tell you on which page of which book each school child in Italy is studying.

It was a weird mix of emotions. One day, your best friend could be killed. The day before, you could be celebrating him getting a brand-new bike.