Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.

The world is a fine place and worth fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.

You'll ache. And you're going to love it. It will crush you. And you're still going to love all of it.

Later he had seen the things that he could never think of and later still he had seen much worse.

Love is a dunghill, and I'm the cock that gets on it to crow.

Here's the reason why the peasant is wise. He's wise because he's beaten from the very start. Give him power and then you'll see how wise he is.

He wants to in the whirl of his own weakness. But the river is coming. By being forced to change, he'll be powerful in change.

Most people are heartless about turtles because a turtle's heart will beat for hours after he has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too and my feet and hands are like theirs. He ate the white eggs to give himself strength. He ate them all through May to be strong in September and October for the truly big fish.

When you have an interior life, it certainly doesn't matter what side of the prison fence you're on.... I've already died a thousand times in a thousand concentration camps. I know everything. There is no new information to trouble me. One way or another, I already know everything. And yet, I find this life beautiful and rich in meaning. At every moment.

Every single day for the rest of your life, somebody is going to push you in the pool. And you'd better decide now how you're going to act when it happens.

I've got to be willing to enter into and do battle with the confusion in order to reach the victory on the other side. It's like, I am here, confusion is in front of me, and just beyond confusion waits the answer or skill I need to take my life in a new and incredible direction.

Character, not circumstance, make a man.