It Is Possible To Know

I Hated Waiting. If I Had One Particular Complaint, It Was That My Life Seemed Composed Entirely Of Expectation.

I Think Hope Is The Worst Thing In The World. I Really Do. It Makes A Fool Of You While It Lasts. And Then When It's Gone, It's Like There's Nothing Left Of You At All . . . Except What You Can't Be Rid Of.

My Politics, And My Religion As Well, Are Based Entirely On The Loveliness And Value Of Ordinary Human Lives. The Creaky Apparatus Called Politics Shelters Or Oppresses Or Threatens These Lives, And Is Therefore Of Interest.

I Really Don't Know Why People Have So Much Trouble Now Writing About Religious Faith. It Is True That Clichés Can Override More Interesting Impulses. But The Desire To Find Meaning, To Be Generous, To Live Well In An Ethical And Spiritual Sense, Is So Widespread That It Should Not Seem Alien To People When It Is Expressed In The Terms Of Traditional Religion.

I Think The Connection Between Poetry And Theology, Which Is Profound In Western Tradition - There Is A Great Deal Of Wonderful Religious Poetry - Both Poetry And Theology Push Conventional Definitions And Explore Perceptions That Might Be Ignored Or Passed Off As Conventional, But When They Are Pressed Yield Much Larger Meanings, Seem To Be Part Of A Much Larger System Of Reality.