Crusts of Wisdom from Dorothy Day

By Michael Patrick O’Brien–

I recently re-read Dorothy Day’s autobiography The Long Loneliness (1952 Harper & Row New York). I had not read it for about 35 years, since college at Notre Dame. I enjoyed comparing my highlighting from three decades ago, as a young college student, to what I highlighted more recently, as a much older man.

There was much overlap, but also new insights gleaned that I apparently missed many years ago. Day explains that: “Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship.” (p. 285). Here are some of the most delicious crusts from her book.

“Writing a book is hard, because you are ‘giving yourself away.’” She adds, “You write about yourself because in the long run all man’s problems are the same, his human needs of sustenance and love.” (p.10)

“The hardship of taking care of him [her younger brother for whom she was a primary caregiver], the hours I put in with him, made me love him the more.” (p. 31)

“Why was so much done in remedying social evils instead of avoiding them in the first place?” (p. 45)

“I have long come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.” (p. 107)

“The holy man [is] the whole man, the man of integrity, who not only [tries] to change the world, but to live in it [as is].” (p.191)

“Where there is no love, put love and you will find love.” (p. 225) (attribution to St. John of the Cross)

“Joy and sorry, life and death, always so closely together!” (p. 242)

“I died as a mineral and became a plant, I died as a plant and became an animal, I died as an animal and was a man. What should I fear? When was I less by dying?” (p. 248) (attribution to an old Indian poem)

“No matter how much a death is expected, no matter how much you may regard it as a happy release, there is a gigantic sense of loss.” (p. 277)

From co-worker Peter Maurin- “We need to create the kind of society where it is easier for people to be good.” (p. 280)

“We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other.” (p. 285)

“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” (p. 286)