My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.

The trees taunt you; the sand mocks you; the water calls your name... and they say golf is a quiet game

People are like tea bags—they never know their own strength until they get into hot water.

Simply because we do not run across goal lines, slam dunk basketballs, or hit home runs, doesn't mean we can't change the score.

Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress.

Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has.

Human misery must somewhere have a stop: there is no wind that always blows a storm; great good fortune comes to failure in the end.

Sometimes life makes you older than your age.

In any case you mustn't confuse a single failure with a final defeat.

Experience is not worth the getting. It's not a thing that happens pleasantly to a passive you--it's a wall that an active you runs up against.

Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat; the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.

She felt a little betrayed and sad, but presently a moving object came into sight. It was a huge horse-chestnut tree in full bloom bound for the Champs Elysees, strapped now into a long truck and simply shaking with laughter - like a lovely person in an undignified position yet confident none the less of being lovely. Looking at it with fascination, Rosemary identified herself with it, and laughed cheerfully with it, and everything all at once seemed gorgeous.