“India will reveal to you the places in your heart that must be purified.”
“Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not obeying in the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person's seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be shown what to do next.”
“But the question to precede all others, which finally determines the course of our lives is What do I really want? Was it to love what God commands, in the words of the collect, and to desire what He promises? Did I want what I wanted, or did I want what He wanted, no matter what it might cost?”
“I get crazy in a bookstore. It makes my heart beat hard because I want to buy everything.”
“Much struck by the idea of a man--this man--bent on doing himself to death, were he able, I asked, "Do you mean, Doctor, that Mr. Penfold desires to...to bleed himself to death? Or do we speak of carnivorous intent?" I'd adopted the doctor's habit of distancing the very present patient, only to be brought up short by Mr. Penfold himself:-"May I respond to that, Dr. Stewart?" This, uttered in tones appropriate to any London parlour.Dr. Stewart said nothing, and so Mr. Penfold spoke on:-"What I wish, sir," said he to me, "is simply to die. Rather, I no longer wish to live. And, as no other means of suicide avails itself to me in this cushioned cell--neither utensil nor tool, not even a hardened corner on which to dash the brains from my head--the doctor speaks true: I would, yes, if able, tear and rend my flesh with fingers and teeth. Not with carnivorous intent, no, but rather to rid myself, my body, of its blood; for the blood, sir, is the life, and, as I have said, I have had done with life.The blood is the life. Whence did those words come? Forthwith I was informed, by Penfold himself:-"So it says in Deuteronomy 12:23, where the interdiction is, and I quote, 'Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life.' But of course I do not wish to drink my own blood, Mr. Stoker. I would, however, see it spilled. I would watch with increasing relief, yes, if the red of life were to run from me.”
“India – a land where the last thing one needs to bother with is looking good. In India – at least in the circles I moved in – it's natural to look beautiful by the smile in your heart and the way you move through the world.”