“I tell you naught for your comfort,/ Yea, naught for your desire,/ Save that the sky grows darker yet/ And the sea rises higher.” The Virgin Mary to Alfred the Great in G.K. Chesterton Ballad of White Horse

“Satirical humour flows from anger in the defense of something the writer thinks is important.” Jonathan Foreman in National Review March 24 1997

“The Ottawa Citizen once asked me what I would like written on my tombstone. I surprised myself because, without even thinking, I replied instantly: ‘He took part!’… I confess to making some really stupid mistakes over the years, but choosing a smooth sleep-inducing highway for a life is not one of them.” Lowell Green The Pork Chop and Other Stories

“The only really practical type of rebellion is that which is also a repentance… All real reform springs from this sense of something wrong, not only in our surroundings, but in ourselves.” G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News October 23 1920, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 10 #4

“In economics, things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then they happen faster than you thought they could.” Rudi Dornbusch

“Kuan Tzu had a saying that I much approve of: ‘Small bags won’t hold big things; short well ropes won’t dip up deep water.’” Confucius in Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings

“An architect I used to know complained that when people hired him, they made it clear that they loved to be innovative but didn’t want to do anything for the first time.” Robert Fulford The Triumph of Narrative

“Because of the goodness of God I have had a happy unhappy life, which is preferable to an unhappy happy one.” John Lukacs At the End of an Age