“We were like gods at the dawning of the world, & our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.”

“We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world”

“He could not be mistaken. There were no other eyes like those in the world. There was only one creature in the world who could concentrate for him all the brightness and meaning of life. It was she. It was Kitty.”

“We are made of the same stardust of which all things are made, and when we are immersed in suffering or when we are experiencing intense joy we are being nothing other than what we can’t help but be: a part of our world.”

“What we would like to do is change the world--make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute--the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words--we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.”

“We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world; and it is the fear of God, which lets us love and foster peace.”

“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”

“i do it for the joy it brings
because i'm a joyful girl
because the world owes me nothing
and we owe each other the world”

“Well, I think it just goes back to the values that I grew up with in the punk rock world because it was this decentralised world, and so we just made our own way— like we'd be antigovernment or, you know— but we really didn't complain a lot; we were more action-oriented, like, people were publishing fanzines, we were setting up shows, we were getting in vans and touring around, and we were associating with other people, so…y'know, I just like that idea.”

“God’s joy is to forgive. God’s being is mercy. Therefore, over the course of this year we need to open our hearts, so that this love, this joy of God might fill us all with this mercy.”