I was absolutely convinced that I wouldn't win the Nobel Prize. My impression was that the Nobel Prize in Literature was given to people more or less affiliated with, let's say, socialist ideas, and that was not my case.

The kingdom of heaven is worth infinitely more than the cost of discipleship, and those who know where the treasure lies joyfully abandon everything else to secure it.

Man sometimes thinks he's been elevated to be the controller, the ruler, but he's not. He's only part of the whole. Man's job is not to exploit, but to oversee, to be a steward. Man has responsibility, not power.

Pollution is everywhere, in that ancient Greek sense of miasma: guilt experienced as abject body fluid, moral pollution defining what kinds of beings count in social space.

Democracy, as I understand it, requires me to sacrifice myself for the masses, not to them. Who knows not that if you would save the people, you must often oppose them?

Please pray with me for everyone in Sri Lanka and the Philippines as I begin my trip.