A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere.

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

A strong man doesn’t have to be dominant toward a woman. He doesn’t match his strength against a woman weak with love for him. He matches it against the world.

There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.

Power is competence.

You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.

I just feel that ‚The Color Purple,‘ which was my 10th book, was a true gift from my ancestors.

The doer alone learneth.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else’s ideas about you, but what’s important is how you feel about yourself – for survival and living day to day with what comes up.

I feel confident imposing change on myself. It’s a lot more fun progressing than looking back. That’s why I need to throw curve balls.

Never marry someone in hope that they’ll change later.

O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can’t expect an angel to look out.

It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.

For people who are readers, reading is important to them.

For a long time, I had the idea that I would do a certain amount of work the best I could, and then I would reach a comfort zone, and I wouldn’t be pushed to write more. I would become a different person. It’s a surprise to me that this hasn’t happened. Your body ages, but your mind is the same.

The relationship to one’s fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one’s striving.

I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness.

To add value to others, one must first value others.

If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.

If it’s all instruction, you get annoyed with it and bored, and you stop reading. If it’s all entertainment, you read it quite quickly, your heart going pitty-pat, pitty-pat. But when you finish, that’s it. You’re not going to think about it much afterward, apart from the odd nightmare. You’re not going to read that book again.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book.

I don’t read ‚chick lit,‘ fantasy or science fiction but I’ll give any book a chance if it’s lying there and I’ve got half an hour to kill.

I’m my own worst critic, and if I don’t pull off what I think I wanted to do in my head, then I won’t be a happy girl.

I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.

For me, it’s about the way I carry myself and the way I treat other people. My relationship and how I feel about God and what He does for me, is something deeply personal. It’s where I came from, my family, I was brought up in a religious household and that’s very important to me.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.

Most of us aren’t defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.

I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.

Whether for life or death, do your own work well.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

You see, idealism detached from action is just a dream. But idealism allied with pragmatism, with rolling up your sleeves and making the world bend a bit, is very exciting. It’s very real. It’s very strong.

The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.

The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.

The Bible tells us to be perfect. This is likely a scary thought for many people. It used to scare me. I didn’t think I could ever get there, no matter how hard I tried.

Thoughts are mental energy; they’re the currency that you have to attract what you desire. Learn to stop spending that currency on thoughts you don’t want.

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

I find with most of my readers are kind of like me, sort of people who were a little bit naive in life and then learned the hard way that this is what’s going on, the political games and most of my readers write to me telling me that the book helped them open their eyes to what other people are doing to them.

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.

A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.

When you pick up a book, everyone knows it’s imaginary. You don’t have to pretend it’s not a book. We don’t have to pretend that people don’t write books. That omniscient third-person narration isn’t the only way to do it. Once you’re writing in the first person, then the narrator is a writer.

It creeps me out sometimes to think of the person I was. I was a terrible person. I was mean to people.

People can try to reinvent themselves. I don’t think you can really change who you are, though, because who you are is pretty much where you came from and what you’ve done up to now.

It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide on what to do.

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

Make bold choices and make mistakes. It’s all those things that add up to the person you become.

The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.

I make preparations both to live and to die every day, but with the emphasis on not dying, and on acting as if I was going to carry on living.

If you don’t set the tone for the day, the devil will set it for you.

I worked with someone who told me they’d never like me. But for some reason, I just felt like I needed her approval. So I started changing myself to please her. It made me stop being social and friendly. I was so unhappy.

Meditation is not to avoid society; it is to look deep to have the kind of insight you need to take action. To think that it is just to sit down and enjoy the calm and peace, is wrong.