It is important that the Church of London, which has now lost its ruler, should receive for its new bishop a man whose personal merit, attainments in learning, and prudence in managing public business shall not be unworthy of the dignity of that see.

Between the uprightness of my conscience and the hardness of my lot, I know not how either to show respect to my feelings or to the times. The bitterness of my mind urges me at all hazards to speak what I think, whereas the necessity of the times prompts me, however unbecomingly, to keep silence. Good God! Which way shall I turn myself?

The king, you say, desires to do what is right. My clergy are banished, my possessions are taken from me, the sword hangs over my neck. Do you call this right?

With shame be it spoken: by her fall, the Church's liberties have been sacrificed for the sake of temporal advantages. The road to her ruin lay through the sinuous paths of riches: she has been prostituted in the streets to princes; she has conceived iniquity and will bring forth oppression to the undeserving.

I'm doing my best to be mindful about how I'm living: to be kind and patient, and not to impose a bad mood on somebody else. Being mindful is as good a way to be spiritual as anything else.

God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.

People see me as a theoretician, but my music is also seductive, even spiritual.

Sometimes I really have a spiritual need to say something more general about the world, and sometimes something personal.