That place is happy over which a holy man builds a house, with fire, cattle, wife, children and good followers

Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.

Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.

Grace is not simply leniency when we have sinned. Grace is the enabling gift of God not to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon.

Faith is not believing in my own unshakable belief. Faith is believing an unshakable God when everything in me trembles and quakes.

But God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn't come through.

Beware the religion that turns you against another one. It's unlikely that it's really religion at all.

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

God's definition of what matters is pretty straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love.

The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

We never grow closer to God when we just live life. It takes deliberate pursuit and attentiveness.

Whatever you want is behind the mountain of struggles. Nothing great comes with ease.

In Luke's Gospel, Jesus is never unkind to the weak. He treats Martha with humiliating honesty, just as he would treat the male disciples.

I realized that every lesson, conference, response, and assignment I taught must lead students away from me and toward their autonomy as literate people.

My father always said, 'If you love what you do, you won't mind slogging through it for several hours a day.

The first movie I saw where it convinced me I could be an actor was 'Mean Streets,' so whenever I see Robert De Niro and he says, 'Hi, Denis,' it's still a really big deal.

Why, after all, should readers never be harrowed? Surely there is enough happiness in life without having to go to books for it.

I think my whole living in vain involves me. I know that the biggest help for me is to help someone else in so many different ways.

Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up a horseshoe.

I will say that art may well be the only thing that lasts, so I guess it's worth trying.

Anyone who studies declassified documents soon becomes aware that government secrecy is largely an effort to protect policy makers from scrutiny by citizens, not to protect the country from enemies.