To place oneself in the position of God is painful: being God is equivalent to being tortured. For being God means that one is in harmony with all that is, including the worst. The existence of the worst evils is unimaginable unless God willed them.

The sovereign being is burdened with a servitude that crushes him, and the condition of free men is deliberate servility.

Each of us is incomplete compared to someone else - an animal's incomplete compared to a person... and a person compared to God, who is complete only to be imaginary.

Naturally, love's the most distant possibility.

There is a kind of sadness in not wanting the things that give so many other people their life's meaning. There can be sadness at not living out a more universal story - the supposed life cycle.

We have spoken of beings so low in the scale that the individuals throughout their whole existence are not sufficiently specialized to be distinctively plant or animal: yet these are definite life in simpler shape.

They say that life is tough enough. But I guess I like to make things difficult on myself, because I do that all the time. Every day and on purpose. That's because I believe in disrupting my comfort zone.

My prayer became 'May I find peace... May I love this life no matter what.' I was seeking an inner refuge, an experience of presence and wholeness that could carry me through whatever losses might come.