Asceticism among a ruling class—except for public show—is very rare.

You see few people here in America who really care very much about living a Christian life in a democratic world.

Only those few people who practice it believe in goodness.

You seldom learn the names of the truly wealthy and powerful. You see only their spokesmen. The political arena makes a few exceptions to this but does not reveal the full power structure.

The path into politics as part of a group that is not often represented in politics. But then there are many other areas outside of politics where there aren't many people like me.

The Catholic community is not very big and in this rests its charm.

You have a sense of humor, Mr. Kazam. That’s a rare thing in the religious.

If we’re saying that public office, or at least high public office is barred to people of a particular faith, or people who have a faith but can leave that faith, as there are strict elements of that faith, then it is getting into dangerous territory.

"A New York leftist and an Alabama Pentecostal may not agree on much, but too often they share a dislike of Catholics" (22).

There was a state without king or nobles; there was a church without a bishop; there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had selected, and by equal laws which it had framed.

Privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.

There are few men who know how to go to their deaths with dignity, and often they are not those whom one would expect. Few know how to remain silent and respect the silence of others.

The Pope is barely Catholic enough for some converts.

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.