“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”

“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter."(Letter 16, 1657)”

“I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.”

“Reverend Fathers, my letters do not customarily follow one another so closely, nor are they usually so extensive. The little time I have had has caused both. I have made this one longer only because I have not had the leisure of making it shorter.”

“I have written letters that are failures, but I have written few, I think, that are lies. Trying to reach a person means asking the same question over and over again: Is this the truth, or not? I begin this letter to you, then, in the western tradition. If I understand it, the western tradition is: Put your cards on the table.”

“Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”