A novel is a map of the human heart, a guide to the depths of our emotions

Peter Elers, one of the first openly gay vicars in the Church of England, who blessed a lesbian ‘marriage’ in 1976 on the understanding that, if the Church blessed battleships and budgerigars, it ought to find it in its heart to bless men and women in love

The joy in life is his who has the heart to demand it.

But it is possible, it is possible: the old grief, by a great mystery of human life, gradually passes into quiet, tender joy; instead of young, ebullient blood comes a mild, serene old age: I bless the sun’s rising each day and my heart sings to it as before, but now I love its setting even more, its long slanting rays, and with them quiet, mild, tender memories, dear images from the whole of a long and blessed life–and over all is God’s truth, moving, reconciling, all-forgiving!

Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.

One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.

I was born to love you

with every single beat of my heart.

You are at once both the quiet and the confusion of my heart.

What every man who loves his country hopes for in his inmost heart: the suppression of half his compatriots.

I know it breaks your heart To picture the only one you wanna love In someone else’s arms, but I wouldn’t have done

Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

I was taught to think about mission and people. Mission. What are you trying to accomplish? Don’t do anything until you know what the mission is. Drilled into our hearts and into our heads.

The gods have become our diseases.

Heart disease has changed my eating habits, but I still cook bacon for the smell.