Now a theist, he thought he should behave like one, even if it meant him during "the fussy, time-wasting, botheration of it all! The bells, the crowds, the umbrellas, the notices, the bustle, the perpetual arranging and organizing," and, worst of all, the hymns and organ music.

— Philip Zaleski

Now he must put into practice all his fine poetic thoughts about romantic love.

— Philip Zaleski

Obedience appears to me more and more the whole business of life, the only road to love and peace.

— Philip Zaleski

One cannot underestimate boredom as an incentive to write.

— Philip Zaleski

Oxford in the Inklings' day was not so different in look and smell from the Oxford of today. Then, as now, one was tempted to fantasize one's surroundings as a Camelot of intellectual knight-errant or an Eden of serene contemplation. Then, as now, there was bound to be disappointment.

— Philip Zaleski

Passion does not translate easily into good income.

— Philip Zaleski

Poetry of World War I, at least in its lyrical mode, was itself the last flowering of the Age of Innocence that preceded the war, that the horrors of the trenches sparked the final blossoming, as friction gives rise to fire; that the daily nightmare unfolding before the soldiers sharpened their sense of beauty, prophecy, and mission.

— Philip Zaleski

Recovery is the ability to see things with clarity, "freed from the drab blur of greatness or familiarity – from possessiveness.

— Philip Zaleski

Religion in art was a subtle business, best handled indirectly.

— Philip Zaleski

Self-deprecation is the appropriate response of any new convert, as he matches his stained soul against the purity of God.

— Philip Zaleski