Quotes from Robert Benson

Sometimes I wish that I could sing or dance or paint or compose symphonies or build cathedrals to express somehow what all of this means to me. I wish I were a priest or a robin or a child or a sunset.

A four year old girl was overheard whispering in her newborn baby brother's ear: "Baby," she whispers, "tell me what God sounds like. I'm starting to forget." -- Between the Dreaming and the Coming True

How do we come to choose what it is that we spend our days doing? Would we choose it again if we could? Did we choose it today, or has it simply carried us along somehow?

The paradox of worship is this: we perform these acts of worship, but they are not actually for us. We do these things for God, and then we are the ones who are changed.

Our longing for community seems to be a part of the image of the One Who made us, a part of the divine image whispered into us when we were whispered into being in the first place.

Writing is hard enough. Writing can be doubly hard when one tries to write to some unseen, unknown crowd of folks in Peoria or any other spot on the planet.

A direct relationship exists between the caliber of the writing you read and the caliber of the writing you make.

Personal prayer does not dispense us from corporate prayer. The one sustains the other.

I would almost rather we had died that day than to have found ourselves here, lost somewhere between the dreaming and the coming true.

Some days I am on the road. Some days I am reading, and some days I am copying quotes. Some days I am writing letters, and some days I am writing chapters. There are no days when I am not working on the craft. There are no days when I am not a writer

One of the secrets to sharing a work in progress is to know whom you are sharing it with and what you want to learn from them.

I know I am finished with a book when I never want to see it again. And if you have worked at it long enough to hate the sight of it, I promise you will come to love it again some sweet day. That is when you will know you did a writer's work.