“Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.”

“We must imagine our lives well. We must engage our conscience. Conscience is the voice of God in the nature and heart of man.”

“I have no more to say except this: We must live with our own conscience.”

“The best fiction is often how we interpret our own lives and what we see as our common due. It is created usually as a means of avoiding reality which, if seriously considered, might negate our ability to strive for what might seem impossible.”

“The history of interpretation, the skills by which we keep alive in our minds the light and dark of past literature and past humanity ... is to an incalculable extent a history of error.”

“At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely ... I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is every- where.”