“Ben learned an important lesson: sometimes to survive you need to face your fear and overcome it.”

“It doesn’t matter what the situation looks like around you; God is greater than any obstacle you may be facing. Don’t assume that where you’ve been, or where you are, is as good as it gets.”

“You may gain a position, but that does not mean you've gained leadership. You may lose position, but that does not mean you've lost leadership! When you gain true character, you can leadership and when you lose it, you cease to be a leader!”

“A goal is a dream with a deadline” 

“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can't. If a thing is free to be good it's also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata -of creatures that worked like machines- would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they've got to be free. Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk. (...) If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will -that is, for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings- then we may take it it is worth paying.”

“Don’t Waste Your Pain All things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose. ROMANS 8:28 Life is full of unjust situations that can create a great deal of pain for you, especially in your relationship with other people. You will experience some hurt and pain, but you don’t have to allow these experiences to destroy your happiness. You can’t always choose what happens to you, but you can choose how you respond to it. If you’ve been hurt, God can take your bad experiences and make them work for your good. Believing this truth is a positive decision that can help stop your pain. Choose to learn from the hurtful experiences instead of wasting your pain by allowing them to make you bitter. One way to do this is to overcome evil with good by making sure you don’t hurt others. It’s a good place to start!”

“Dear Habicht, / Such a solemn air of silence has descended between us that I almost feel as if I am committing a sacrilege when I break it now with some inconsequential babble... / What are you up to, you frozen whale, you smoked, dried, canned piece of soul...?”

“But one of the worst results of being a slave and being forced to do things is that when there is no one to force you any more you find you have almost lost the power of forcing yourself.”

“it’s hard to be spiritually strong and mentally alert when you are emotionally stressed or physically fatigued.”

“People who know a lot of the same things can hardly help talking about them.”

“Conventional wisdom would say that the less you give, the more you have. The converse is true. The more you give, the more you have.”

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

“I am what I am because of who we all are.”

“You cannot succeed when surrounded by disloyal and unfriendly associates, no matter what may be the object of your definite chief aim. Success is built upon loyalty, faith, sincerity, co-operation and the other positive forces with which one must surcharge his environment.”

“Don't allow anybody to make you feel that you're nobody.”