“The serious writer must take serious vows....a vow of silence, except through his work. A vow of consistency, sticking with writing to the exclusion of other fields. A vow of ego-chastity, abstaining from adulation. A vow of self-regard, placing the self as writer before the self as personality.”

“She has vowed never to love: and that vow means I must endure a living death.”

“There was something of relative freedom in that feudal gesture of the vow; for no man asks vows from slaves anymore than from spades.”

“A man vows, and yet will not east away the means of breaking his vow. Is it that he distinctly means to break it? Not at all; but the desires which tend to break it are at work in him dimly, and make their way into his imagination, and relax his muscles in the very moments when he is telling himself over again the reasons for his vow.”

“In order to have a spiritual life, you need not enter a seminary, or fast, or abstain, or take a vow of chastity. All you have to do is have faith and accept God. From then on, each of us becomes a part of His path. We become vehicles for His miracles.”

“I took a vow to stop taking things.”