Gary Aldwell

“HOW TO REFUSE DEFEAT Life is fragile and uncertain. Sooner or later, you will experience a great loss in life, when suffering reveals that the world is not the place you think it is, and that your dreams will not come true after all. What then? Don’t blame others for what happened to you, even if it might well be their fault. This is a dead end. And don’t settle for stoic acceptance of your fate. Merely bearing up under strain is noble, but it’s wasting an opportunity for transformation. You have the power to turn your burden into a blessing. What if this pain, this heartbreak, this failure, was given to you to help you find your true self? Make adversity work for you by launching a quest inside your own heart. Find the dragons hiding there, slay them, and bring back the treasure that will help you live well.”
― Rod Dreher, How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History's Greatest Poem

“It is better to choose to know the painful truth rather than settle on a comforting lie. Resolve to look for and to accept the truth, no matter how much it hurts. Nothing built on lies lasts.”
― Rod Dreher, How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History's Greatest Poem

“In the Commedia, recall, sin consists not only in loving and desiring bad things but also in loving and desiring good things in the wrong way.”
― Rod Dreher, How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History's Greatest Poem

“Be grateful for holiness when you find it among churchmen, but do not expect it. As Flannery O’Connor wrote, “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful. Priests resist it as well as others.”
― Rod Dreher, How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History's Greatest Poem