For years I wanted to be older, and now I am.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

I was in my late thirties when my eyes were opened to truth in God’s Word that showed me I wasn’t living the abundant life Jesus died for me to have. I had a very negative mindset and was miserable most of the time because of the abuse I had experienced throughout my childhood.

Do not be in a hurry to succeed. What would you have to live for afterwards? Better make the horizon your goal; it will always be ahead of you.

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

No person is important enough to make me angry.

I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I’ve done that sort of thing in my life, but I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.

For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?

A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

I’m afraid to fail again.

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

When I write about a 15-year old, I jump, I return to the days when I was that age. It’s like a time machine. I can remember everything. I can feel the wind. I can smell the air. Very actually. Very vividly.

Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.

Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.

When I had to make a decision whether or not an activity was appropriate for the Sabbath, I simply asked myself, ‚What sign do I want to give to God?‘ That question made my choices about the Sabbath day crystal clear.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

When I was young, I could not imagine being old. My mother said, and the doctor confirmed, that I had an unusual amount of energy; and it followed me into young adulthood.

The truth is something that burns. It burns off dead wood. And people don’t like having the dead wood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent dead wood.

In my case Pilgrim’s Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

I was a thug.

Did you know there’s a difference between being busy and being fruitful? Did you ever stop to think that just being busy – running around in circles all day but not accomplishing anything – is the same as wasting your time? It’s frustrating to expend so much energy and time and not have any fruit from your effort!

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of the things that are happening inside you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you.

Don’t be afraid to see what you see.

My life is mine to remember.

I can do whatever I want.

Because my dad abused me, I was determined to never let a man tell me what to do. God clearly showed me that I needed to be a submissive wife if I wanted to be effective in ministry. The truth is, if we don’t learn to submit to authority, we won’t ever learn to submit to God.

I realized, ‚Yo, I can’t do anything in moderation. I don’t know how.‘

I never saw myself as a folk singer.

Real life is the life that’s in you, not your circumstances, like where you live or what job you have or who you’re in relationship with.

I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn’t bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn’t have any brains. I didn’t know what I was doing there. That’s why I became an actor.

I think a big test we all face in life on a regular basis is that discouragement test. Life’s not always fair, but I believe if you keep doing the right thing, God will get you to where you are.

I approach love differently now that I know it’s hard for it to work out.

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

My family, frankly, they weren’t folks who went to church every week. My mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew but she didn’t raise me in the church, so I came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

I’m so wrapped up in my work that it’s often impossible to consider other things in my life. My marriage ended in divorce because of this, my relationship with Holly has suffered by this.

I am getting to the point where the only love worth being in is the love worth singing about.

You get one life. I’m going to embrace mine.

I was not an anthropology student prior to the war. I took it up as part of a personal readjustment following some bewildering experiences as an infantryman and later as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany. The science of the Study of Man has been extremely satisfactory from that personal standpoint.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

Once I realized that right thinking is vital to victorious living, I got more serious about thinking about what I was thinking about, and choosing my thoughts carefully.

It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

Oh, I’ve always been very… Emotional. ‚Hypersensitive‘ is what they call it, I think.

I kinda live where I find myself.

My grandmother is over eighty and still doesn’t need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.

I’ve learned over the years that when I go to that place of passion within me, there’s no force in the universe that can interfere with my completing a project.

I definitely connected to the fact that life gets out of control and you end up doing things and wishing you were doing other things instead.

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.

I never thought of losing, but now that it‘ s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That’s my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.

In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.

I think that I’m perfect.

This has always been my life and no one else’s, and that’s how it’s always been since the day I came in it.

If you look at my life, generally, I’ve been put in situations which were difficult and which I conquered.

Many people feel so pressured by the expectations of others that it causes them to be frustrated, miserable and confused about what they should do. But there is a way to live a simple, joy-filled, peaceful life, and the key is learning how to be led by the Holy Spirit, not the traditions or expectations of man.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.