Quotes from William Stringfellow

Whatever happened I would not, I dared not, become a hostage to grief. Anthony had been my sweet companion for seventeen years, but grieving for myself because he had died was neither tribute nor benefit to him and should not become the purpose or the focus of my existence. …If I allowed this, the power of death would not only have claimed Anthony in the grave but would also seize me – prematurely, or without sufficient pretext.

There are those in high office who talk pompously of 'limited nuclear strikes' and 'acceptable risks' of tens of millions of casualties, but I suggest that anyone capable of such bizarre calculations is patently insane – in the old legal meaning of insanity as loss of conscience, or moral disability.

Over and over again, while I was in the law school, I was astonished at how eagerly many of my peers surrendered to this regimen of professionalistic conditioning, often squelching their own most intelligent opinions or creative impulses in order to conform or to appear to be conforming.

No white man is innocent. I am not innocent.

If you want to do something, the most practical thing I can tell you is: weep. First of all, care enough to weep.