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...
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...
Only because books are better than people, Father. ... Because they are masters who instruct without a rod. If you approach them, they are never asleep; if you are ignorant, they never laugh; if you make mistakes, they never chide. They give to all w...
normal is an opinion from a man just like the rest of us, to function just like society is an idea, that to limit and bound reality to make life convenient was fascinating to one soul. then soon to his lot, what is called evil or insane is what peopl...
The most important thing is not to work on things that other people are working on because otherwise all you'll do is get the same result as everybody else and you won't make any discoveries, you'll just confirm what's already known. David Jewitt (27...
I am a Beacon of Light. I attract so many different kinds of people from all walks of life. Like a moth to a flame. Different ages,different races, different genders,different social classes,the homeless,the mentally disabled and addicts. So you have...
She says isn't it funny how every second, every minute, every day, month, year, is accounted for, capable of being named - when time, or life, is so unwieldy, so intangible and slippery? This makes her feel compassion towards the people who invented ...
What I’ve learned from my travels is that people are more alike than they are different. Yes, I may have a different home or lifestyle than a mom living in Shanghai, but deep down we are still mothers who hope for the best in our children. I always...
Responsibility sucked rocks. Until a few months ago, I hadn’t been responsible for anything more than color-coordinating my wardrobe. But foil one vampire vixen bent on world domination and suddenly people expect all kinds of things. Some days it j...
Strength is taking charge of your own destiny and not waiting on others to do so. You don’t have to swear and drink and beat people up and slay monsters. You’re allowed to cry and take care of children and cook and get your heart broken and dress...
Around a child, people come and go, objects appear and are taken away, surroundings take shape and disintegrate. And no explanation is given, because how can you explain the world to a child? So she had used the words. Words call forth and secure tha...
