"The spiritual life is not a specialized part of daily life. Everything you do in the day, from washing to eating breakfast, having meetings, driving to work, solving problems, making more problems for yourself once you have solved them, watching television or deciding instead to read, going to a restaurant or a movie or going to church, everything you do is your spiritual life. It is only a matter of how consciously you do these ordinary things, how attentive you are to the opportunities they offer for growth, for enjoyment, and how mindfully, how selflessly, how compassionately, you perform them."
— Laurence Freeman

"When St. Theresa of Lisieux was looking back over her life she told how it was her father's custom, when she was a quite small child, to take her out before she went to bed to show her the stars. He told her the names of the planets, how they were grouped and how far away they were believed to be, and how everything in the sky was the work of God's hands. Reflecting in later life on these occasions she judges that they marked for her the beginning of her prayer life. She was not conscious of setting her mind to pray, and there was no set form to her prayer, but in retrospect she thinks that the majesty of God so impressed itself on her little-girl mind as to evoke a response which must have been prayer. Awe and wonder. The greatness of God. No preoccupations with the worthless self, no particular awareness that prayer is going on."
— Hubert van Zeller

"I share the secret of the child, of the saints and sages, as well as of clowns and fools when I realize how wondrous ad marvelous it is to carry fuel and draw water. Once the spiritual significance of such ordinary earthly acts dawns on me, I can skip the yoga and koans, the mantras and novenas.

"One finds pain and pleasure, ecstasy and enstasy, God and humanity in the commonplace. All these good natural experiences usher us, if we let them, into the presence of God, into supernatural life. It's better to stay home and smell a flower, bake an apple pie, or sweep a floor than to have a spooky, spurious religious experience at a prayer meeting. It's better to simply enjoy the sunshine or a good show than to meddle curiously and conceitedly with the occult. It's better to romp wit the dogs in the backyard than rap with the intellectuals on campus or at church, if the dogs in the yard help us to be less egoistic and more God-centered."
— William McNamera