Brian

“The Torah is teaching us that by keeping the Holy Torah, we receive Hashem’s blessings: Yevarechecha—Hashem blesses us and protects us. Yaeir—Hashem shines his face towards us and makes us favorable, in the eyes of other nations. Yisa—Hashem forgives us for everything that should not have happened and grants us true peace. And when the Kohanim mention Hashem’s name in these blessings, Hashem not only approves, but gives additional blessings of His own. (Based on Sichas Rosh Chodesh Sivan 5741; Sefer Hasichos 5751, vol. 1 p. 42)”
― Yosef Y. Alperowitz, Pearls for the Shabbos Table

“On the other hand, there are people who seek a certain reality in religion and in doing so reach different sorts of supernatural experiences – inner experiences that give one a feeling of reality, accompanied by perceived unnatural phenomena, which science cannot (or does not wish to) explain.”
― Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, The Strife of the Spirit

“I wondered that she should waste so much energy fighting over a little matter like wearing hats in chapel, but then I told myself that, after all, life was like that for most of us -- the small unpleasantness rather than the great tragedies; the little useless longings rather than the great renunciations and dramatic love affairs of history or fiction.”
― Barbara Pym, Excellent Women

“On the threshold of sixty,’ mused Dr. Parnell. ‘That’s a good age for a man to marry. He needs a woman to help him into his grave.”
― Barbara Pym, Some Tame Gazelle