Even the simplest things had a glorious pointlessness to them. When buttons came in, about 1650, people couldn't get enough of them and arrayed them in decorative profusion on the backs and collars and sleeves of coats, where they didn't actually do ...
We were very poor. But between the covers of books I could go anywhere, I could be anybody, I could do anything. I began to read about people of great accomplishment. As I read those stories, I began to see a connecting thread. I began to see that th...
You speak of love but are you the love you speak of? I can tell the depth of somebody's faith by how far and broad their love stretches. If you lack in faith hit your knees and pray for it. It's not about just loving people who see eye to eye with yo...
My girlfriends and I talk a lot about feminism and the inequality between the way men and women are talked about, the kind of things we say are, ‘Why is it mischievous, fun and sexy if a guy has a string of lovers that he’s cast aside; loved and ...
The simple truth is that love is a part of who we are, not something that others "give" to us if we're worthy of it. We're taught that if we just find that right person, and that person "falls in love" with us, everything will be fine. We're not taug...
The quality self-confidence is not bad in youth. We rather like to see it, for it indicates usually the possession or the motive power which makes a man aggressive and enterprising. He works more vigorously if he is sure that he is nearer right than ...
But he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loves. He built his sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which he has founded forever. He chose David his servant and took him from the sheepfolds; from following the nursing ewes he b...
Ours is no ordinary calling. Great opportunities and privileges have been bestowed upon us. To us, as a people, has been entrusted the grand and glorious labor of laying the foundation of the kingdom of God upon the earth. Every act of our lives shou...
Some people know they'll live until spring and that's all they need to be happy. When I was feeling good, I just let the sun go down, knowing I'd see it again next morning. When I felt worse, and it didn't matter for what reasons, every sunset seemed...
I don't know why people do the things they do to each other. We're all here to live out lives, to do our work, to raise our families, to love who we love. We're all here for the same things, but some, they can't let that be. They can't be happy or co...
It's not about the money. It's about the love! Do what you do because it brings joy to yourself and others. When it starts to become more about money and less about the people and your own personal happiness, that’s when it becomes a chore. At that...
Nothing you love is left behind. You come back to it once you understand it, once you see its essence as it is: pure and flawless - once you refuse to define your life without it. Look into yourself. The only thing you regret in the end is falling fo...
I have fallen in love with writing, unknowingly. Instead of thinking whether people will like what I write or not, I decide to write only for one person- myself! I told myself that ‘I as an author is going to entertain I as an audience.’ And ever...
Children are people, and they should have to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults have to reach if they want to grow in mental stature. Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and sa...
Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn on...
I would hesitate to use the word 'success' in the way many people do. I don't know that I would apply it to what I've done as though I have now reached the ultimate goal. To me success is a continuing thing. It is growth and development. It is achiev...
My advice for aspiring writers is go to New York. And if you can’t go to New York, go to the place that represents New York to you, where the standards for writing are high, there are other people who share your dreams, and where you can talk, talk...
The amazing thing, when she came to do the long-postponed Egypta in 1910, after she had won international fame, was that she did indeed do a work which was not only a day in the life of Egypt but the life of the nation itself, starting with dawn, wit...
Try to remember some details. For the world is filled with people who were torn from their sleep with no one to mend the tear, and unlike wild beasts they live each in his lonely hiding place and they die together on battlefields and in hospitals. An...
I'm not difficult," Violet said. "I'm simple. I like good books and clever conversation and being left alone much of the time. How does that make me difficult? I make sense? I don't talk about my feelings, of course, but then, I don't want to." She s...