“When you go through a disappointment, when you go through a loss, don’t stop on that page. Keep moving forward. There’s another chapter in front of you, but you have to be willing to walk into it.”

“Jessica stopped beside him: ‘What delicious abandon in the sleep of a child.’ He spoke mechanically: ‘If only adults could relax like that.’  ‘Yes.’ ‘When do we lose it?’ He murmured… ‘We do indeed lose something,’ she said.”

“Give more, don't expect not to be repaid. Give more thanks for what you haven’t expected but received!”

“Man got into difficulty when he lifted his will against God’s. He gets out of trouble when he bows to the divine superiority, when he repents and says humbly: “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Man’s extremity then becomes God’s opportunity.”

“Once very near the end I said, 'If you can -- if it is allowed -- come to me when I too am on my death bed.' 'Allowed!' she said. 'Heaven would have a job to hold me; and as for Hell, I'd break it into bits.”

“Positive thinking can be contagious. Being surrounded by winners helps you develop into a winner.”

“The most altruistic man is the most selfish.”

“Follow your passion. It will lead you to your purpose.”

“Many a criminal has finally given himself over to the authorities because the accusations of a guilty conscience were worse than prison bars.”

“He who prays as he ought, will endeavor to live as he prays.”

“Mainly, though, the Democratic Party has become the party of reaction. In reaction to a war that is ill conceived, we appear suspicious of all military action. In reaction to those who proclaim the market can cure all ills, we resist efforts to use market principles to tackle pressing problems. In reaction to religious overreach, we equate tolerance with secularism, and forfeit the moral language that would help infuse our policies with a larger meaning. We lose elections and hope for the courts to foil Republican plans. We lost the courts and wait for a White House scandal. And increasingly we feel the need to match the Republican right in stridency and hardball tactics. The accepted wisdom that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists these days goes like this: The Republican Party has been able to consistently win elections not by expanding its base but by vilifying Democrats, driving wedges into the electorate, energizing its right wing, and disciplining those who stray from the party line. If the Democrats ever want to get back into power, then they will have to take up the same approach. ...Ultimately, though, I believe any attempt by Democrats to pursue a more sharply partisan and ideological strategy misapprehends the moment we're in. I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. For it's precisely the pursuit of ideological purity, the rigid orthodoxy and the sheer predictability of our current political debate, that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challenges we face as a country. It's what keeps us locked in "either/or" thinking: the notion that we can have only big government or no government; the assumption that we must either tolerate forty-six million without health insurance or embrace "socialized medicine". It is such doctrinaire thinking and stark partisanship that have turned Americans off of politics. ”

“Just because we are anointed for leadership does not mean that we get to move immediately into a position of leadership. There is a work that has to be done in us, a testing that has to take place first. Later, we will look at some of the tests of the heart of a leader that we must go through before we get promoted.

“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”

“after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one hero less on earth”

“Who can tell us how to get along with each other better than God? Where can we turn for wisdom better than God’s Word, the Bible?”