“I don’t like politics much,” she said. “Why’s that?” “I don’t know. People always end up disappointed.”

“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.”

“We have tried to enthrone the false gods of money, fame, and human intelligence; but however we try, the end is always the same: “It is appointed unto men once to die” [Hebrews 9:27 KJV].”

“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.”

“The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of. Our attention would have been on God.”

“Do you think I care if Aslan dooms me to death?” said the King. “That would be nothing, nothing at all. Would it not be better to be dead than to have this horrible fear that Aslan has come and is not like the Aslan we have believed in and longed for? It is as if the sun rose one day and were a black sun.”

“The cult of self has become an addiction—feeding off the ego of self-glorification. The word cult encompasses many movements and ideas, but simply put, it describes a culture of alternative beliefs, fads, and trends, and tampers with just enough truth to knock many off balance.”

“I should like friendship with you ... and trust. I should like that respect for each other which grows in the breast without demand for the huddlings of sex.”

“Doubt is from the devil. You have to resist doubts and rebuke them. You have to get your mind on the answer — on God’s Word. In order to receive answers to your prayers, you must eradicate every image, suggestion, vision, dream, impression, feeling, and all thoughts that do not contribute to your faith and that do not affirm that you have what you have asked God for. The word “eradicate” means to uproot or remove. Remember, Satan moves in the sense realm, in the natural realm, and he uses the tool of suggestion.”

“Think like a queen. A queen if not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.”

“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”

“All mankind is sitting on Death Row. How we die or when is not the main issue, but where [we] go after death.”

“I have nothing to make me miserable," she said, getting calmer; "but can you understand that everything has become hateful, loathsome, coarse to me, and I myself most of all? You can't imagine what loathsome thoughts I have about everything."

“Being pure in conduct also includes honesty and integrity in dealing with our fellowmen. A Christian should be known in his neighborhood or place of business as an honest person.”

“Music makes me forget myself, my true condition, it carries me off into another state of being, one that isn't my own: under the influence of music I have the illusion of feeling things I don't really feel, of understanding things I don't understand, being able to do things I'm not able to do (...) Can it really be allowable for anyone who feels like it to hypnotize another person, or many other persons, and then do what he likes with them? Particularly if the hypnotist is the first unscrupulous individual who happens to come along?”