“Change comes with sacrifice... When you want to make a change you must be prepared to make a sacrifice of escaping the comfort zone!”

“The mere fact that this thought has sprung up among different nations and at different times indicates that it is inherent in human nature and contains the truth.”

“We cannot always control all our circumstances, but we can control ourselves with God’s help.”

“God made you for a reason and your life has profound meaning! We discover that meaning and purpose only when we make God the reference point of our lives.”

“She thought of the boy’s features as an exquisite distillation out of random patterns—endless queues of happenstance meeting at this nexus.”

“Self-centered indulgence, pride and a lack of shame over sin are now emblems of the American lifestyle.”

“Forgiveness is.... giving up the hope that you can change the past.”

“No one ever said, “This isn’t the way normal people live.” Again, I think it was the sense of family unity, strengthened by the Averys, that kept me from being too concerned about the quality of our life in Boston.”

“They, they, they. That was the problem with people like Joyce. They talked about the richness of their multicultural heritage and it sounded real good, until you noticed that they avoided black people. It wasn't a matter of conscious choice, necessarily, just a matter of gravitational pull, the way integration always worked, a one-way street. The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around. Only white culture could be neutral and objective. Only white culture could be nonracial, willing to adopt the occasional exotic into its ranks. Only white culture had individuals. And we, the half-breeds and the college-degreed, take a survey of the situation and think to ourselves, Why should we get lumped in with the losers if we don't want to? We become only so grateful to lose ourselves in the crowd, America's happy, faceless marketplace; and we're never so outraged as when a cabbie drives past us or the woman in the elevator clutches her purse, not so much because we're bothered by the fact that such indignities are what less fortunate coloreds have to put up with every single day of their lives-- although that's what we tell ourselves-- but because we're wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and speak impeccable English and yet have somehow been mistaken for an ordinary nigger. Don't know who I am? I'm an individual!”

“A large part of our attitude toward things is conditioned by opinions and emotions which we unconsciously absorb as children from our environment. In other words, it is tradition—besides inherited aptitudes and qualities—which makes us what we are. We but rarely reflect how relatively small as compared with the powerfu... See more”

“Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.” 

“You discover your identity and purpose through a relationship with Jesus Christ.”

“Josh Billings once wrote, “It ain’t what a man knows what hurts him. It’s what he knows what ain’t true.”

“Women are the only people I am afraid of who I never thought would hurt me”

“One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen.”