Good Words from Good Books

"I have to wait again, before putting the frosting on.  The waiting is hard.  I want everything to be delicious all at once.  I want to skip over the hard parts, the boring parts, the lonely and sad and angry parts.  But if I do that, the cake won't be good.  It won't be right. So I wait.  Even though it's uncomfortable and too hot in the kitchen.  Even though I don't feel like waiting for the good part."  p. 324 "'Lawrence would have loved this,' Naomi says.  It's a sad sentence; a sentence that makes us miss him a little bit more. But like the cake, the missing is a little sweet, too, a little wonderful, a little sad, a little messy and crooked and delicate and strange."  p. 325-326 "No one's smiling right now, listening to a sad story about losing a job, but we're all together.  It doesn't look sunny and beautiful and perfect.  It's so much better than that... Love, in the way we take care of each other wh...

"I only want my rights.  I'm not asking for anybody's bleeding charity. " "Then do.  At once.  Ask for the Bleeding Charity.  Everything is here for the asking and nothing can be bought."  p. 28 "The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness."  p. 69 "Heaven is reality itself.  All that is fully real is Heavenly."  p. 70-71 "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, ' Thy  will be done.  All that are in Hell, choose it.  Without that self-choice there could be no Hell."  p. 75 "You cannot love a fellow-creature fully until you love God."  p. 100 "Good beats upon the damned incessantly as sound waves beat on the ears of the deaf, but they canno...

"...everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."  p. 66 "The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity--even under the most difficult circumstances--to add a deeper meaning to his life.  It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish.  Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and becomes no more than an animal.  Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him."  p. 67 "He who has a why  to live for can bear with almost any how."  (Frankl quoting Nietzsche) "What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen tas...

"Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for a future that only He can see."  -Preface by Elizabeth Sherrill (quoting Corrie) "All through the short winter afternoon they kept coming, the people who counted themselves as Father's friends.  Young and old, poor and rich, scholarly gentlemen and illiterate servant girls--only to Father did it seem that they were all alike.  That was Father's secret: not that he overlooked the differences in people; that he didn't know they were there."  p. 29 "...the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do."  p. 31 "When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need--just in time."  p. 44 "Happiness isn't something that depends on our surroundings, Corrie.  It's something we mak...

"The world we live in is not the real thing.  The actual world--which is closer to us than we sometimes realize--is full of truth and capable of bringing us to a higher level than we can understand...My spiritual insight let me see that we as human beings live far below our potential from day to day.  One day we will be confronted with our true potential; and we will see what we have missed because we have not embraced the ultimate help offered to us from our Creator...every choice we make defines our lives in the eternities.  Nothing can be hidden, and even every thoughtless spoken word will be brought to our painful awareness one day." p. 53-54 "...when we pray and listen carefully to the promptings of the Spirit, miracles can happen.  The things that seem to be too difficult can be accomplished."  p. 82 "I believe that one of the greatest challenges for members of the Church is to ensure that our lives are not led by routine.  When we are governed by...

"If we do not hate anyone and do not fear anyone, then we are free."  p. 244

Five Character-Building Habits: 1. Discover the body--its potential and its frailty, and the many diverse stages of life that lie ahead--by spending time with people who are not your peers. 2. Develop a Work Ethic--be free to work with delight rather than seeking to be free from work 3. Embrace Limited Consumption--Intentionally try to spend time creating and less time consuming 4. Learn How to Travel, and Travel Light--experience other cultures to better understand your own 5. Learn How to Read and How to Decide What to Read-Help our kids build, explain, and defend their reading choices.  Return to some of the great literature again and again. "An awareness of one's mortality makes life richer because the important can be emphasized and the trivial marginalized."  p. 96 "A job well done makes the world a better place."  p. 134  (It doesn't so much matter what the job is.) "I have no patience for the critics who do little but point out how th...