JOSEPH K

“Because left to its own devices life would never produce love, it would only lead you to attraction, from attraction to pleasure, then to attachment, to satisfaction, which finally leads to wearisomeness and boredom. Then comes a plateau. Then once again the weary cycle: attraction, pleasure, attachment, fulfillment, satisfaction, boredom. All of this mixed with the anxieties, the jealousies, the possessiveness, the sorrow, the pain, that make the cycle a roller coaster. When you have gone repeatedly around and around the cycle, a time finally comes when you have had enough and want to call a halt to the whole process. And if you are lucky enough not to run into something or someone else that catches your eye, you will have at least attained a fragile peace. That is the most that life can give you; and you can mistakenly equate this state with freedom and you die without ever having known what it means to be really free and to love.”
― Anthony de Mello, The Way to Love: Meditations for Life

“I lack the Lord’s own gentleness of heart, for I see deliberate malice where he sees ignorance and weakness.”
― Anthony de Mello, Wellsprings: A Book of Spiritual Exercises

“I leave you free to be yourself: to think your thoughts, indulge your tastes, follow your inclinations, behave in ways that you decide are to your liking.”
― Anthony de Mello, The Way to Love: Meditations for Life

“The trouble with your ideals is that if you live up to all of them, you become impossible to live with.”
― Anthony de Mello, Taking Flight: A Book of Story Meditations