“There is a danger of developing a blanket distaste for modern life which could have its attractions but lack the all-important images to help us identify them.”

“Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life.”

“It's making life important, making a single life important, rather than having a prescription for the global ills which afflict us.”

“If the attitude of many non-Catholic modern philosophers toward Catholic thought could be summarized in a single sentence, it would be: It has been tried, it has produced its definitive results, which have been found lacking, and now its time is past”

“It's important that you identify what the best things are in your life. The things that do more than just get you through the day. The things that make you want the next day to come. And once you identify those things, it's critical that you nurture them and keep them strong.”

“You think it's all rather too "New Age" to be taken seriously, eh?''Not at all.''But it's an ancient discipline...''New Age disciplines invariably are,' Beede said, disparagingly, 'but in the modern world they lack context - we just pick them up and then toss them back down again, we consume them. They have no moral claim on us. No moral value. And without that they're rendered meaningless, fatuous, even.”