"The darkness is not caused by a flaw in the room—for I don’t know how to explain myself—but by so many bad things like snakes and vipers and poisonous creatures that enter with the soul and don’t allow it to be aware of the light. It’s as if a person were to enter a place where the sun is shining but be hardly able to open his eyes because of the mud in them. The room is bright but he doesn’t enjoy it because of the impediment of things like these wild animals or beasts that make him close his eyes to everything but them. So, I think, must be the condition of the soul."

I find Teresa of Avila so interesting, but like The Book of Margery Kempe, the book itself isn't as engrossing as the woman behind it IMO. Still worth a read but def takes some adjusting to as someone more accustomed to works from later time periods.