“He says that you have gifts and talents and abilities; you are capable; anything He asks you to do you can do; you are strong in the Lord and not weak; you are forgiven; and on and on and on.”

“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!”

“Jesus knows the intentions of our hearts and what we do in secret.”

“Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion.”

“[Angels] crisscross the Old and New Testaments, being mentioned directly or indirectly nearly 300 times.”

“Peer pressure accounts for much of the promiscuous sex in high schools and colleges. “Conform or get lost.” Since no one enjoys losing friends or being cast out of his own circle, peer pressure—especially during the years of adolescence—is an almost irresistible force.”

“God has ways to increase you beyond your normal income,”

“You cannot make God stop loving you, because his love is based on who he is, not what you do. It is based on his character, not your conduct.”

“Cease to think of an impossibility and you will seize an opportunity for productivity. Excellence comes when you leave thoughts of imposibilities behind and live by the focus of faith and hope in the face of difficulty.”

“Leaders don’t hide good news from their followers. As long as they discover knowledge, they share knowledge. They leave part of them with people they meet; hence they are hardly missed when they are gone.”

“The subject of heaven is much easier to accept than the subject of hell. And yet the Bible teaches both.”

“I want to oppose the idea that the school has to teach directly that special knowledge and those accomplishments which one has to use later directly in life. The demands of life are much too manifold to let such a specialized training in school appear possible [...] The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgement should always be placed foremost.”

“Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. JOHN 14:27”

“I don't worry about the survival of the novel. We're a storytelling species.”

“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.”