READING GOOD BOOKS

'...as you seek books that you will enjoy reading, demand ones that make demands on you: books with sentences so exquisitely crafted that they must be reread, familiar words used in fresh ways, new words so evocative that you are compelled to look them up, and images and ideas so arresting that they return to you unbidden for days to come.'  

Karen Swallow Prior, On Reading Well, p.17. 

READING BAD BOOKS

'Since therefore the knowledge of and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning or error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the region of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner of reason? And this  is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read.'  

John Milton in Karen Swallow Prior, Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books, p.15. 

DYING WELL

'...it has struck me that, in his grace and compassion, our heavenly Father allows us to practise what it is like to die faithfully, to die as a believer and follower of Christ, every single night of our lives. You know precisely what it feels like to die in Christ: it is like falling asleep. I have tried to imagine that feeling of being exhausted and drained after a long and gruelling day, and then, at long last, your head touches that soft pillow. And all you have to do is give way to sleep, because you know you are safe, secure and protected. Falling asleep is not something strange and terrifying; it is an experience that our heavenly Father gives us in advance so that we need not be fearful.' 

John Wyatt, Dying Well, p.122. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMANITY

'People are more important and more enduring than things. In an unstable and perishable universe the one stable and imperishable factor is human personality. It is with this that God is primarily concerned. A man's character is the only thing he can take out of this life with him.' 

Michael Green, 2 Peter and Jude, p.152. 

BELIEF & BEHAVIOUR

'There is an indissoluble link between conduct and conviction.'
Michael Green, 2 Peter and Jude, p.152. 

UNREALISTIC PARENTING

'I wanted him (& I also wanted this for his 2 younger sisters) to like all the things I liked to do & to do the things I did, & at the same time to be able to do all the things I couldn't...'

Penelope Fitzgerald in Hermione Lee, Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life, p.163.

THE IMPORTANCE OF INTEGRITY

'No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.' 

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p.161.

THE IMPORTANCE OF DIFFERENCE IN FRIENDSHIP

'It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.' 

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p.19.

THE PASTORAL POWER OF A CUP OF TEA

'Dottie suddenly asked the woman if she would like a cup of tea, and Shelley said, "Oh, wouldn't that be nice," and so they sat in the living room, which was really the lounge. Shelly Small didn't take more than one sip of the tea; that was just a prop, as they would say in the world of theatre, just a piece of furniture, so to speak, allowing her to sit in Dottie's house on the autumn day while the light shifted through the room. That cup of tea, Dottie saw, gave her permission to talk.' 

Elizabeth Strout, Anything is Possible, p.187. 

KNOWING GOD

'The God who is Divine community is known only in human community.'
David G Benner, The Gift of Yourself: The Scared Call to Self-Discovery, p.49.