“The deeper spiritual life calls us to external and interior silence and solitude that open us to the real abundant life of God. They call us to deny the false nourishment of egotistic junk food and to seek out real spiritual food. This means sometimes cutting ourselves off from the sugar-coated food of the secular world in order to find the real meat of the gospel. The sugar might seem to taste better, but it will kill us when eaten exclusively or to excess.”

Talbot, John Michael. The World is My Cloister: Living From the Hermit Within. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010), page 116.