The palaces faith builds are greater than the prisons fear creates.

A genuine smile is one of the world’s rarest treasures.

A fish that is afraid of drowning in a river is ignorant of its gifts.

A diamond earns its sparkle from the pressure it endures.

It is in the storm, not the calm, that a rainbow is born.

A determined seed cannot be hidden from the world, not even by dirt.

Calm skies don't make skillful eagles.

If you cry in the rain, only the sky will see your tears.

Birds keep singing beautiful songs, even if they have no audience.

Today's storms help you appreciate tomorrow’s sunshine.

Train the ears to hear more, the eyes to see more, the hands to do more, the feet to accomplish more, the mind to think more, the heart to feel more, and the soul to love more.

Life comes and goes. …If you know that, you know it all.

And you find some way to surviveAnd you find out you don't have to be happy at all..To be happy you're alive.

I've started looking at my own father a bit funny. He assures me, though, that I really am the son of a Scottish postman.

I have nine Grammy Awards. I wouldn't have that if I couldn't sing.

There are only 2 responses to the world, fear or love. Your life depends on which one you choose.

Precisely where I feel my poverty is where I discover God's blessing.

Always make the other person feel important.

Patterned after an Italian Renaissance palace, it is 88 times as large and one millionth as valuable to the continuation of man. that Pentagon of traveling salesmen.

The child who ran weeping to you with a cut finger is now brought home, smiling gamely, with a broken collarbone and incredible contusions- 'it wasn't Jezebels fault, Dad.'

I've always read broadly: literary fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, chick lit, historical, dystopian, nonfiction, memoir. I've even read Westerns. I prefer female protagonists.