At the moment you are most in awe of all there is about life that you don’t understand, you are closer to understanding it all than at any other time.
A mystic is a person who is puzzled before the obvious but who understands the nonexistent.
The thing that astonished him was that cats should have two holes cut in their coat exactly at the place where their eyes are.
Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he does not wish to sign his work.
I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.
There is a fifth dimension beyond those known to man. It is a dimension vast as space and timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between the pit of his fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area called the Twilight Zone.
If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise you’ll just be rearranging furniture in rooms you’ve already been in.
I don’t think, in our kind of society, we’ll be able to develop a full-blown mystical religion or concept of God because we seek instant gratification, fast food, endless talk and noise. The silence in mysticism is alien. People want to do a few courses in mysticism, rather like the way you do French before going on holiday, and emerge a mystic. Mysticism isn’t like that.
Joan of Arc: I hear voices telling me what to do. They come from God.
Robert: They come from your imagination.
Joan: Of course. That is how the messages of God come to us.
O you who love clear edges more than anything . . . watch the edges that blur.
When nothing is for sure, we remain alert, perennially on our toes. It is more exciting not to know which bush the rabbit is hiding behind than to behave as though we knew everything.
What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed? And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?
Everything that happens is at once natural and inconceivable.
If one looks at a thing with the intention of trying to discover what it means, one ends up no longer seeing the thing itself, but thinking of the question that has been raised. One cannot speak about mystery; one must be seized by it.
There are times when you want to stop working at faith and just be washed in a blowing wind that tells you everything.
Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness; touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.
Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way to the limits of humility or the limits of delight.
I am glad that my master lived in a one-story house when I began to traverse the early stages of love. For when he would speak of the wonders and the beauty of creation, I could not control my happiness and would commence a dance that most always resulted in a dive, head first, out of his window. And you only broke your big nose seventeen times.
