Only God Himself fully appreciates the influence of a Christian mother in the molding of character in her children.

I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.

I get up every morning and say, ‚Father, give me strength today, not strength so I can lift 500 pounds, but give me strength, Lord, so when I speak, my words might motivate, might inspire somebody, Lord, when they see me, let them see you. When they hear me, Lord, let them hear you. In your holy name I pray.‘

I’ve been studying the Bible for a long time. I remember that after the first five years or so of diligently studying the Word, I didn’t feel like I had made any progress. There were a lot of things in my life that were out of order, and I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere.

You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s.

He who has faith has… an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well – even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.

We will always be a family. Always.

I’m amazed sometimes by the Christians who don’t really believe that God wants to help them and bless them.

I always tried to do things by example, even though I was not a very good mother regarding routines and family life.

My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families – second families, perhaps I should say.

If you’re not careful to think and speak words of faith, worry will creep in, and it will not only steal your peace and joy, it will steal your ‚today.‘ The present is the greatest gift God ever gives us. So hold on to the peace that’s yours in Christ. Don’t let it go.

I can tell you from experience that God’s help and presence in our lives is vital. He is the Author of all true success and everything that is good-without Him, we can do nothing of true value.

Everywhere I go, the kids call me ‚the book lady.‘ The older I get, the more appreciative I seem to be of the ‚book lady‘ title. It makes me feel more like a legitimate person, not just a singer or an entertainer. But it makes me feel like I’ve done something good with my life and with my success.

When we walk without the cross, when we build without the cross and when we proclaim Christ without the cross, we are not disciples of the Lord. We are worldly. We may be bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, all of this, but we are not disciples of the Lord.

Nothing reflects so much honor on a workman as a trial of his work and its endurance of it. So it is with God. It honors Him when His saints preserve their integrity.

If you want someone to say, ‚She’s so sweet, and she’s so cute, and, honey, point your foot,‘ that’s not my school. You can go to the YMCA and have a nobody teach your kid if that’s what you want to hear.

For an author, the nice characters aren’t much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They’re doing it for themselves.

I didn’t have any children of my own.

The details surrounding both my marriage and subsequent filing for divorce are private, and I had hoped to keep them that way for the sake of my family.

Education commences at the mother’s knee, and every word spoken within hearsay of little children tends toward the formation of character.

Men do not accept their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and worship those whom they have tortured to death.

God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.

Satan wants us to constantly focus on everything that is wrong with us and look at how far we still have to go. But God desires for us to rejoice in how far we have already come.

My son’s full real name is Duncan Zowie Haywood. As a toddler, he was called by his second name Zowie. But it was such an identifiable name during the Seventies that if I called him loudly in public places, everyone would turn to stare, so I started calling him Joey to take the pressure off.

God is more interested in your future and your relationships than you are.

The ‚Maddox Jolie-Pitt‘ Foundation’s work is inspired by our children and their connections to particular countries.

A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this – that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made – not to understand – but to feel – as crime.

We can never learn too much of His will towards us, too much of His messages and His advice. The Bible is His word and its study gives at once the foundation for our faith and an inspiration to battle onward in the fight against the tempter.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

I found that the corridors of power in Delhi were littered with lobbies of various kinds.

She got her looks from her father. He’s a plastic surgeon.

As social animals, we are extremely susceptible to the moods of other people. This gives us the power to subtly infuse into people the appropriate mood for influencing them.

I did stand-up for my grandparents every day when I was, like, eight.

Who’s my hero? That’s a great question… Well, I think my dad is my hero, because he’s someone I look up to every day.

When it comes to our everyday habits, it’s important to ask: ‚Am I putting God first?‘

Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.

Time was when they that feared the Lord spake often to one another; I am afraid that now they more often speak one against another.

I still learn, but I think it’s the best thing in life to have a kid.

I’ve taught a lot about prayer over the years and how it is really just talking to God.

What’s so beautiful about Miami is that we support each other. We’re just one big family, not just the entertainers, just everyone in general.

When I was growing up, I wanted to adopt, because I was aware there were kids that didn’t have parents.

I think a father is important for everyone. If you don’t have, then maybe not so much. In the world today, it’s possible that you grow up with only one parent in the family.

There are some people who need to wear a label round their necks to show that they are Christians at all, or else we might mistake them for sinners, their actions are so like those of the ungodly.

A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art.

I’ve been praying that we might have a spiritual awakening. But I think that becomes possible as individuals surrender their lives fresh and anew to Christ.

If you have faith in our leaders of commerce, don’t buy gold. If you do not have faith in them, maybe you should buy gold or silver.

Plumbers can be masters, the guy who did my patio is a master, some people are masters at raising really great children.

I want a president who will teach our children that everyone in this country matters, a president who truly believes in the vision that our Founders put forth all those years ago that we are all created equal, each a beloved part of the great American story.

My next baby will be my new record.

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

I’m a Christian by choice.

Let man live at a distance from God, and the universe remains neutral or hostile to him. But let man believe in God, and immediately all around him the elements, even the irksome, of the inevitable organize themselves into a friendly whole, ordered to the ultimate success of life.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between.

It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

Modern cynics and skeptics… see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.

A child miseducated is a child lost.

My friends ask me if I want more kids, and I always say yes, I want more; it’s the best thing you can have in your life.

When I was young, an eccentric uncle decided to teach me how to lie. Not, he explained, because he wanted me to lie, but because he thought I should know how it’s done so I would recognise when I was being lied to.

If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.