I think I wish I had never spanked my children, but I have. And they remember every instance like they tattooed it on their palms. I think it's a terrible lesson, to use physical punishment to make a point about not behaving, not being kind to their ...
Many people have told me that my books read like novels. Perhaps this is because, when I write, I feel I am really there, so strong is my feeling for my subject. On occasion, I have been so moved by the events I have been describing that I have felt ...
I kinda liked ol' Shakespeare and them guys, you know. I went back and got my master's just in case. I thought, if I ever needed it, I'd have the sheepskin to show people no matter how dumb I looked, actually I was about half intelligent. I got the d...
Taking risks, choosing growth, challenging ourselves, and asking for promotions (with smiles on our faces, of course) are all important elements of managing a career. One of my favorite quotes comes from author Alice Walker, who observed, "The most c...
The truest of all truths is this: You are a child of God. Out of more than six billion people on earth now, He knows your name, what you fear and what you revere. He cares about the things you care about. He wants your happiness and success, and will...
Standing there at the stage door to the rest of your life. Time to dip your toe into the deep end. Try things. Say hi already. Laugh a lot. Mess up. Apologize. Mess up again. Hug people. Take chances. Trust yourself. Lose things. Get over it. Hold yo...
People think the only time the earth is renewed is in spring. I find it’s renewed around Christmastime when hard, old hearts are softened. When children’s laughter drowns out anguish. When magic transforms the dull into something beautiful and sp...
You’re going to have people who are going to say ‘Oh, you know like, she just writes songs about her ex-boyfriends’ and I think frankly that’s a very sexist angle to take. No one says that about Ed Sheeran. No one says it about Bruno Mars. Th...
When I was 25, I believed I could change the world. At 41, I have come to the realization that I cannot change my wife, my church, or my kids, to say nothing of the world. Try as I might, I have not been able to manufacture outcomes the way I thought...
People don't understand rural America. Sixteen percent of our population is rural, but 40 percent of our military is rural. I don't believe that's because of a lack of opportunity in rural America. I believe that's because if you grow up in rural Ame...
Although I've written a few (a few) poems over the years, I am not a natural poet...and I remain in awe of people who are. The ability to evoke deep emotion, reveal a new facet of the world, or condense an entire story into the limited space and form...
When you meet someone you want to know, be very careful on how you sit on the driving seat to examine that person because you may end up putting yourself on a serious examination. Sometimes people lose interest & walk away after a chat because of the...
Literature duplicates the experience of living in a way that nothing else can, drawing you so fully into another life that you temporarily forget you have one of your own. That is why you read it, and might even sit up in bed till early dawn, trowing...
Love is blind. sometimes so myopic eyes to see which ones need to be sacrificed which ones to be saved. romance was deaf, ears sometimes so faint to hear where is counsel where is incitement Passion was mute, sometimes mouth can not speak. let alone ...
Other major world religions are still centered in the same general geographic area from which they originated except for Christianity. Even more intriguing, the center of Christian growth continues to move. Why? This author suggests that Christian pr...
Every working mother has the things she dreads, things that keep her up in the night – pink eye, an ear infection, the parent-teacher conference, the school play – all forcing her to remind the people she works with that she is not, in fact, whol...
A prepared mind is always made up; it knows what it thinks and why it thinks that. When it's time to change, it just makes itself up a different way. A really made-up mind--made up properly, knowing what it knows and on what basis it knows it--is ope...
On the one hand, all truth is relative; on the other hand, postmodernism tells it like it really is. On the one hand, all cultures are equally deserving of respect; on the other, Western culture is uniquely destructive and bad. Values are subjective-...
Your friends, and your associates, and the people around you, and the environment that you live in, and the speakers around you - the speakers around you - and the communicators around you, are the poetry makers. If your mother tells you stories, she...
I always apologized for my home to protect myself so people wouldn't think I was a slob, or at least so they would know that I acknowledge I can be a slob and that I'm not okay with it and that really I have much higher standards. . . . When I apolog...
It shouldn’t be about getting famous. It shouldn’t be about the size of your following. It should be about the way in which you connect with people in the world around you. It’s about finding what you’re truly passionate about, and letting th...
