44 Quotes by James Runcie

"We are born in a clear field and die in a dark forest."

"We can’t live in a country where there is one law for the rich and another for the poor."

"They are to resist evil, support the weak, defend the poor, and intercede for all in need.” My job is to do the right thing."

"Autumn was his favourite time of year, not simply for its changing colours but for the crispness in the air and the sharpness of the light. As the leaves fell the landscape revealed itself, like a painting being cleaned or a building being renewed. He could see the underlying shape of things. This was what he wanted, he decided: moments of clarity and silence."

"There is always a future for our deepest loves."

"The ultimate aim of art, like that of love, is to reach for the shapeless origin of all shapes, the essence of beauty."

"The truest test of character is how we behave towards people who can do nothing for us."

"The “wonder” felt by the shepherds at the Nativity, or the disciples at Pentecost; that sense of amazement when we experience something that is so far beyond our comprehension and yet it is still revealed to us in all its glory as a gift from the infinite. I think we’ve lost our awareness of what “wonder” really means: the more we content ourselves with the narrow confines of our existence, the less we wonder."

"There is only one religion – it is a way a man dies."

"What a mess people make of their lives,’ he thought."