BETH

“Theology is-- or should be-- a species of poetry,which read quickly or encountered in a hubbub of noise makes no sense. You have to open yourself to a poem with a quiet, receptive mind, in the same way you might listen to a difficult piece of music... If you seize upon a poem and try to extort its meaning before you are ready, it remains opaque. If you bring your own personal agenda to bear upon it, the poem will close upon itself like a clam, because you have denied its unique and separate identity, its inviolate holiness.”
― Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness

“[T]he family is a school of compassion because it is here that we learn to live with other people. (68)”
― Karen Armstrong, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life

“Respect only has meaning as respect for those with whom I do not agree.”
― Karen Armstrong, A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

“I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the silence, which compelled me to enter my interior world and around there. Without the distraction of constant conversation, the words on the page began to speak directly to my inner self. They were no long expressing ideas that were simply interesting intellectually, but were talking directly to my own yearning and perplexity.”
― Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness