“You can be called to do something that feels difficult to your flesh, but if you can get beyond your initial doubts and find that you have peace once you are doing it, then you will know that God is confirming your natural talents.”

“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment; full effort is full victory

“Our greatest enemies are always our own doubts and fears. But there are no limits to what you can do, be, or have except for the limits you place on yourself.”

“We are going through a sexual tempest, a bombardment provided by unprecedented exploitation of cheap sex by moviemakers, theater owners, publishers, and producers of pornography. [There is more] openness of talk about sex, acceptance of public nudity . . . homosexuality. Sex revolution, no! But sex pollution? Yes!!”

“Stop for a few seconds and create a clear mental picture of yourself as completely relaxed, calm, positive, smiling, and in complete control of the interview. Then inhale deeply, filling up your lungs and putting pressure on your diaphragm. Hold this breath for a count of seven and exhale for a count of seven. While you are breathing deeply, continue to hold a picture of yourself as the very best salesperson you could possibly be.”

“it’s important to make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.”

“A killer with the manners of a rabbit - this is the most dangerous kind.”

“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!”

“wormfaced, crawling, sand-brained piece of lizard turd!”

“Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events”

“Self-reliance and independence can transform into selfishness and license, ambition into greed and a frantic desire to succeed at any cost. More than once in our history we've seen patriotism slide into jingoism, xenophobia, the stifling of dissent; we've seen faith calcify into self-righteousness, closed-mindedness, and cruelty toward others. Even the impulse toward charity can drift into a stifling paternalism, an unwillingness to acknowledge the ability of others to do for themselves. ....In a country as diverse as ours, there will always be passionate arguments about how we draw the line when it comes to government action. That is how our democracy works. But our democracy might work better if we recognized that all of us posses values worthy of respect: if liberals at least acknowledge that the recreational hunter feels the same way about his gun as they feel about their library books, and if conservatives recognized that most women feel as protective of their right to reproductive freedom as evangelicals do of their right to worship.”

“The Pareto Principle 20 percent of your priorities will give you 80 percent of your production IF you spend your time, energy, money, and personnel on the top 20 percent of your priorities.”

“They displayed a sophistication in warfare as good as anything he had ever encountered, and he had been trained by the best fighters in the universe then seasoned in battles where only the superior few survived.”

“The best thing a man can do for his children is love their mother.”

“Great crowds followed our Lord . . . as He healed the sick, raised the dead, and fed the hungry. However, the moment He started talking about the cross . . . “many . . . no longer followed him” (John 6:66 NIV).”