Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I had always suspected language was quite limited in its ability to communicate the intricate mysteries of truth.
I often learn more about myself from listening to the life story of a friend than I do reflecting on my own story.
If honesty is the key to intimacy, it means we don't have to be perfect and we don't have to pretend to be perfect.
How disappointing would it be get to heaven and find out God created life to be enjoyed while all we did was worry?
I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me
When something happens to you, you have two choices in how to deal with it. You can either get bitter, or get better.
The most attractive characteristic in a person is the story they are telling the world. We stop and stare at stories.
If you want to bond with your friends, do something very hard with them, something that you won't be able to do alone.
Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.
If you don't feel free and be yourself, you can't connect. Find people who accept your quirks. They'll heal your soul.
Lets choose to do something really difficult, something that saves lives, and let's do that thing with people we love.
There's a lot of letters, and a lot of people come say "hi" at book signings, but I'm amazed at how normal everybody is.
All this beauty exists so you and I can see His glory, His artwork. It's like an invitation to worship Him, to know Him.
I took William Zinsser's advice that you write to yourself and you hope that there are people out there who are like you.
If what you are doing is important, you will encounter resistance. If what you are doing isn't important it will be easy.
I love writing books - I really do. If I could just quit everything and work on a book every day, I would love that most.
...if I do not introduce people to Jesus, then I don't believe Jesus is an important person. It doesn't matter what I say.
Most great art is created when the artist feels they are channeling something rather than trying to communicate something.
It occurs to me it is not so much the aim of the devil to lure me with evil as it is to preoccupy me with the meaningless.
It blew my mind that what I was thinking was actually applicable to people's lives, and it certainly revolutionized family.
The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won't make a story meaningful, it won't make a life meaningful either.
One of the things I associate with God is a sunrise. How many sunrises have you missed over the years, and God created that?
I think understanding your life as a story is a really terrific way of kind of knowing where you are and knowing who you are.
And so I have come to understand that strength, inner strength, comes from receiving love as much as it comes from giving it.
Every human being is searching for a deep sense of meaning, and yet we're all chasing success. We've confused one for the other.
Great writers know what to cut out. It's the same in life. Clear ambitions. Clear relationships. This is the stuff of good story.
We don't know how much we are capable of loving until the people we love are being taken away, until a beautiful story is ending.
We don't think of our flaws as the glue that binds us to the people we love, but they are. Grace only sticks to your imperfections.
I know, from the three visits I made to him, the blended composite of love and fear that exists only in a boy's notion of his father.
Without a positive male role model in your life it is extremely difficult to become a man who benefits his family and benefits society.
Without a positive male role model in your life, it is extremely difficult to become a man who benefits his family and benefits society.
Meaning is something we experience more than we attain. It's like finding a nice, easy current in a river that carries you through life.
A story is based on what people think is important, so when we live a story, we are telling people around us what we think is important.
People are lonely. They want company and your book can provide them company and a little bit of hope. And there's nothing wrong with that.
It's possible to do both as a writer - to engage and have a family and all that good stuff - and I chose not to for the sake of the career.
I stay away from churches in which I feel like I have to pretend I'm a better person than I am. That sort of thing moves my faith backwards.
Flattery has a short battery life, but reminding people they are amazing and precious and wanted and works of art can truly change their lives.
I loved the fact that it wasn't my responsibility to change somebody, that it was God's, that my part was just to communicate love and approval.
I'm just trying to make the point that the story we're telling ourselves is often very different from the story we're telling the people around us.
If we are not willing to wake up in the morning and die to ourselves, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether or not we are really following Jesus.
We don't need as much as we have. Hardly any of us need as much money as we have. It's true what they say about the best things in life being free.
God made a whole beautiful earth and decided to put you in it, to experience all of this beauty. You can't do that watching television all the time.
Imagine, a Being with a mind as great as God's, with feet like trees and a voice like rushing wind, telling you that you are His cherished creation.
I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made fo figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently.
I need for there to be something bigger than me. I need someone to put awe inside me; I need to come second to someone who has everything figured out.
There are things you cannot understand, and you must learn to live with this. Not only must you learn to live with this, you must learn to enjoy this.
Believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is making a decision. Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon.
We shouldn’t be afraid to embrace whimsy, that nagging idea that life could be magical; it could be special if we were only willing to take a few risks.
I think our society puts too much pressure on romantic love, and that is why so many romances fail. Romance can't possibly carry all that we want it to.
We don't naturally want to take responsibility for our lives. We want to give the responsibility to someone else. We blame them when our lives aren't good.