“If I can see it and believe it, then I can achieve it.”

“The time is always right to do what is right.”

“She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was.”

“If there is any religion that could respond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism.”

“But whenever I tried to pin down this idea of self-esteem, the specific qualities we hoped to inculcate, the specific means by which we might feel good about ourselves, the conversation always seemed to follow a path of infinite regress. Did you dislike yourself because of your color or because you couldn’t read and couldn’t get a job? Or perhaps it was because you were unloved as a child—only, were you unloved because you were too dark? Or too light? Or because your mother shot heroin into her veins … and why did she do that anyway? Was the sense of emptiness you felt a consequence of kinky hair or the fact that your apartment had no heat and no decent furniture? Or was it because deep down you imagined a godless universe? Maybe one couldn’t avoid such questions on the road to personal salvation. What I doubted was that all the talk about self-esteem could serve as the centerpiece of an effective black politics. It demanded too much honest self-reckoning from people; without such honesty, it easily degenerated into vague exhortation. Perhaps with more self-esteem fewer blacks would be poor, I thought to myself, but I had no doubt that poverty did nothing for our self-esteem. Better to concentrate on the things we might all agree on. Give that black man some tangible skills and a job. Teach that black child reading and arithmetic in a safe, well-funded school. With the basics taken care of, each of us could search for our own sense of self-worth.”

“He realized suddenly that it was one thing to see the past occupying the present, but the true test of prescience was to see the past in the future. Things persisted in not being what they seemed.”

“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.”

“... the scriptures... when properly examined and rightly divided, do not portray Jesus as a poverty-stricken individual. On the contrary, Jesus is seen as a Man whose needs were met and who was regularly involved in meeting the needs of others.”

“I'm not where I need to be, but Thank God I'm not where I use to be. I'm okay and I'm on my way!”

“Sooner or later we must leave our dream world and face up to the facts of God, sin, and judgment. The Bible says, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” [Romans 3:23 NIV].”

“Motivation gets you going and habit gets you there.”

“Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.”

“No matter how dark and hopeless a situation might seem, never stop praying.”

“Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember, the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you.

“To succeed, you have to be open to problems. You have to be open to failure. And as you go up the ladder, you gain the right to get more problems.”