Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm not the first person to have said this - no writer ever feels that the execution of a book lives up to the idea for that book. The execution always falls short.
Every moment of life is unique-a kiss, a sunset, a dance, a joke. None will ever recur in quite the same way. Each happens only once in the history of the universe.
American Muse, whose strong and diverse heart So many men have tried to understand But only made it smaller with their art, Because you are as various as your land.
Waiting is an exercise of faith that demonstrates the condition of our hearts. Waiting on God is an act of faith. And faith is what separates the men from the boys.
My plight has given me a strange kind of wealth, the most important kind. I value each moment that is not spent in pain, desperation, hunger, thirst, or loneliness.
'Homeward Bound.' I find myself listening to that tune a lot when I'm traveling. Sitting in a railway station, wanting to go home, carrying all your stuff with you.
Writing is not about making a buck, not about publishers and agents. Writing is not about feeling good. Writing is about pain, suffering, hard work, risk, and fear.
It has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry.
The Hindus have worshipped from ancient times the baby Krishna in the arms of Virgin Devaki just as the Roman catholics [sic] worship Madona [sic] with baby Christ.
A sapling must be hedged about for protection, but when it becomes a tree, a hedge would be a hindrance. So there is no need to criticise and condemn the old forms.
Consciousness is observing your thoughts and actions so that you can live from true choice in the present moment rather than being run by programming from the past.
Has everyone gone mad?” “Everyone was mad already, my lady,” Cadrach said with a strange, sorrowful smile. “It is merely that the times have brought it out in them.
There are those who see a problem and there are those who will not give up until they find a solution - finding a solution is what the Full Stop Foundation is about
Religion, society and state - from none of these do women get their proper honor. It is religion, which has created an unparalleled disparity between men and women.
I believe the personal is the collective. One of the ironies of writing memoir is in using the "I" it becomes an alchemical "we." This is the sorcery of literature.
I think wherever we are, we can create an atmosphere of openness and trust, where women and those who feel marginalized feel safe to speak the truth of their lives.
When we treat people merely as they are, they will remain as they are. When we treat them as if they were what they should be, they will become what they should be.
There are those who struggle every day with challenges. Let us extend to them our concern, as well as a helping hand. As we care for each other, we will be blessed.
As you and I walk the pathway Jesus walked, let us listen for the sound of sandaled feet. Let us reach out for the Carpenter's hand. Then we shall come to know Him.
Man has made remarkable strides in conquering outer space, but how futile have been his efforts in conquering inner space- the space in our hearts and minds of men.
Creative power is that receptive attitude of expectancy which makes a mold into which the plastic yet undifferentiated substance can flow and take the desired form.
The fishing is best where the fewest go and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone is aiming for base hits.
Our Christian hope is that we are going to live with Christ in a new earth, where there is not only no more death, but where life is what it was always meant to be.
We know that mental illness is not something that happens to other people. It touches us all. Why then is mental illness met with so much misunderstanding and fear?
Jesus clearly viewed children as precious - and that if he loved kids enough to say that adults should be more like them, we should spend more time loving them too.
The best results are achieved by using the right amount of effort in the right place at the right time. And this right amount is usually less than we think we need.
We can all reduce our life to a description that makes people feel sorry for ourselves or we can expand our life to a dimension where we connect and give to others.
If you like to tell stories and compose sentences, and if you work hard at being good at these things, then you are a writer even if you haven't published anything.
There is nobody in the world that you can't get if you really concentrate on it, if you really want them. You've got to want it to the exclusion of everything else.
The hardest lesson I've had to learn in my life is that my intelligence is inversely correlated to my humility. The more I thought I knew, the less I actually knew.
I am sustained by a sense of the worthwhileness of what I am doing; a trust in the good faith of the process which created and sustains me. That process I call God.
...If at moments the facts seem to alter with an altered voice, why then you can choose the fact you like best; yet none of them are false, and it is all one story.
The human and environmental devastation caused by nuclear weapons - whether by testing, mistake or malice - is the very reason we need to eliminate them altogether.
Regarding Wikileaks, I have profound ambivalent feelings about it. I am a firm believer in a strong intelligence service. There's a need for classified information.
[He] saw communism for the sham that it was--a bunch of brutes who seized power in the name of the people, only to repress the very people they claimed to champion.
The natural movement of one's soul is upwards. But just as any object is dragged down when a heavy weight is tied to it, the burden of the body drags down the soul.
Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.
If you have not consciously made the decision to be rich, excellent, and healthy, then you have unconsciously made the decision to be poor, mediocre, and unhealthy.
The point is this: that the stream of memory may lead you to the river of understanding. And understanding, in turn, may be a tributary to the river of forgiveness.
We never slam the door on flattery, we nudge it shut like a man rejecting his mistress: if she nudges back, we're delighted and if she breaks it down, we rejoice.
Find the appropriate balance of competing claims by various groups of stakeholders. All claims deserve consideration but some claims are more important than others.
Believe me, the man who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, eats oftener a sweeter morsel, however coarse, than he who procures it by the labor of his brains.
May the things of this world so lose their power over us that we do not in the slightest wish to be 'worldly'; nay, we even delight in not remaining 'in the world.'
Thoughts are mental energy; they're the currency that you have to attract what you desire. You must learn to stop spending that currency on thoughts you don't want.
You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you won't succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy.
If you think about shortages, you're going to attract more shortage! If you think about what's missing, you're going to attract more of what's missing in your life.
I've always been a generous and a kind person and so on, but never, ever have I experienced that kind of love. The world just looked different to me and still does.
Everyone and everything that shows up in the world of form in this universe originates not from a particle, as quantum physics teaches us, but from an energy field.
When I sit down to write a book, I do not know where the energy and the words come from. I just sit down, and soon it is flowing through my hand and onto the paper.
Only in the Orwellian world of double-speak employed by President Barack Obama and billionaire elitist Michael Bloomberg would nonsense be hailed as 'common sense.'