Today’s One-Liner (#172)
The basic function of literature, as far as I can say, is to entertain the spirit in a very big way. —Isaac Bashevis Singer: Conversations, edited by Grace Farrell, p. 75.
Proust Was Obviously before Your Time…
When he wrote— L’artiste qui renonce à une heure de travail pour une heure de causerie avec un ami sait qu’il sacrifie une réalité pour quelque chose qui n’existe pas.—Le temps retrouvé [The artist who…
Slowpoke
Only dilettantes go to Spain for four weeks and come back with a novel about Spain. —Isaac Bashevis Singer: Conversations, edited by Grace Farrell, p. 153. In my case, I went to the Middle East…
The Greatest Message
When readers ask me about the message of my works, I tell them that the greatest message we’ve got is the Ten Commandments. They are short, precise, clear. We don’t need new messages, and they…
A Committed Priest
What was Fr. Mankowski’s crime? Faithful obedience to the Magisterium of Holy Mother Church. That, and a severe love of the Truth, and an inability to keep his mouth shut about it. –Karen Hall, The…
Today’s One-Liner (#171)
My life is botched-up because, at 26, I’ve yet to earn a steady income, I’ve yet to really help anyone in the world, including really taking care of myself, and I’ve yet to love a…
Today’s One-Liner (#170)
We still protect crippled people, handicapped people, but in the center of it all we find a sort of cancer growing, which is the return to infanticide. –René Girard, Maxim #146, in All Desire Is a…
Wake Up Already!
In our own place and time, we have made a science of escape and sleep. Rather than live at that sharp edge of life, awake and alert, we pretend that we have no sin. There…
Today’s One-Liner (#169)
To have courage for whatever comes in life – everything lies in that. –Saint Teresa of Avila, quoted in Eknath Easwaran, Love Never Faileth: The Inspiration of Saint Francis, Saint. Augustine, Saint Paul, and Mother…
Boldness
The Sovereign Pontiff lowered his head toward me in such a way that my face almost touched his, and I saw his eyes, black and deep, fixed on me and they seemed to penetrate to…