When I look back on my life as a whole, it is impossible for me not to feel blessed.

Soldiers, I had lately like to have been taken from you by the attempt of a few desperate men, but by the grace and providence of the gods, I am still preserved.

How does a nice Catholic girl end up going to prison for a year? It’s crazy. I’ve made mistakes. I have to pay for those mistakes.

Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.

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

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

The more you seek the uncomfortable, the more you will become comfortable.

I don’t know how to live good. I only know how to suffer.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.

The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

I suppose for a very long time I’ve been trying to understand how it is that people might make sense out of their lives and make meaning and make their lives meaningful in the face of the trouble that life brings.

The truth is, somebody is always talking about you, so you have to let it go… if it’s not a part of your God-given destiny.

It’s a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

Don’t compare yourself with other people; compare yourself with who you were yesterday.

A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.

Military school was great and especially great for leadership and then I spent two years in Vietnam.

Some people are very good at being ‚stars‘ and it suits them. I’m grudging about it and I find it annoying.

We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.

It’s so easy to settle for less than God’s best for us because we don’t always feel like taking responsibility for our behavior or putting forth some effort to do what we need to do so we can accomplish great things for God and help people. But the cost of settling for less is actually harder than being completely obedient to God’s will.

People who don’t know the true character of God – who don’t believe He is merciful, gracious and slow to anger – can never have a close, personal, intimate relationship with Him.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy.

People may think I’m trying something new by telling stories, but they’re just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That’s what I do.

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

Living big and joyful and content is almost always the result of our finding satisfaction in life’s ordinary day-to-day pleasures. And God must be fond of them, too, for He made so many of them for us to enjoy.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

Wow, I get to wake up again? Ok. You have to make good with what you’ve got.

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

I was ironing my own clothes when I was 11 years old. My mental strength goes back to those days.

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man’s lack of faith in his true Self.

To be ashamed of one’s immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one’s morality.

Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

If we don’t know life, how can we know death?

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

In my entire life, any time I’ve ever lost something, I’ve gotten something even better going around the next corner. It’s like one door closes and another door opens. As long as I can walk through the produce section in every grocery store in this country and eat the grapes that they’re going to throw away, I know I can be fine.

You’re not going to say anything about me that I’m not going to say about myself. There’s so many things that I think about myself; if someone really wanted to get at me, they could say this and this and this. So I’m going to say it before they can. It’s the best policy for me.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

I don’t think human beings learn anything without desperation. Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything or creating anything. Period. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.

Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It’s because I’m not quite an atheist and it worries me. There’s that little bit that holds on: ‚Well, I’m almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.‘

When I was into my 30s, I became increasingly depressed by rejection letters. I had had the feeling that by the time I was 30, I would be established. But I was not at all. By the time of ‚Lives of Girls and Women,‘ I was into my 40s and I had become more thin-skinned.

Right now I’m just delighted to be alive and to have had a nice long bath.

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.

Stay active. Read the Word. Worship with other believers. Continue to give. Keep learning and growing. Your faith will be unleashed!

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

It’s hard to be clear about who you are when you are carrying around a bunch of baggage from the past. I’ve learned to let go and move more quickly into the next place.

I’m afraid to fail again.

Love always ends differently and it always begins differently – especially with me.