We must all make the mental leap from the pious histories we have read in the martyrologies to the reality of living flesh and blood. Our early martyrs were real men and women, with their own personalities, their flaws and their greatness. We are no different.

Human relationships were so complicated and always veering in the direction of the irrational.

It is about a dragon and a prince and a princess.” “Oh, lovely! Does it end happily?” “Happily for the humans. Not so well for the dragon.” “Just as it should be. Commence.

The pain in itself is not joy. It is simply pain. But the meaning of the pain, that is joy.

Abstract academic discussions have a way of leaving their mark on entire civilizations, as the events of this century have proved all too well.

If we do not play in the dangerous surf, we will drown in puddles.

To love mankind merely in the abstract”, he once said, “is one face of a single coin, and on its other side is hatred of mankind in the abstract. To love in truth is to serve the suffering person before you, and to do what you can to assist him.

I’m a great fan of Chesterton, you know. He once said that he became a Catholic because we’re the only religion that sees no contradiction between a pint, a pipe, and a cross.

Every sin is a choice to turn a miraculous being into an object for consumption. It flattens the human person, one’s self and one’s victim, into a one-dimensional universe.

I have always been beguiled by birds. As if there was much they would tell me if they could, but they are only permitted to bear witness with their lives, their song.