The relief of being at last engaged in the execution of the purpose, was so great to me that I felt it difficult to realise the condition in which I had been a few hours before.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.

We are God's art. We are God's poem, created to display His beauty and goodness.

We give our mistakes too much power. Instead, see a mistake for what it is. It is not the real you… You are more valuable than the opinion others have of you.

When you understand why you were born, you can handle whatever comes your way. You stop running from your past, from your pain, and from your mistakes.

My message to blacks was: "It is time to stop hating who you are. God created you black—love yourself, love your hands and face, big nose and lips, for that is the only way you can love God. Blackness is God's gift to humanity.

I am not like a pebble on the beach - a grain of sand on the seashore or just one of millions of human beings past, present and future. No, I am a unique human being loved by God as if I were an only child - the only fruit of his creative powers.

Each woman brings her own separate, unique strengths to the family and the Church. Being a daughter of God means that if you seek it, you can find your true identity.

In the name of feminism, we denied some essential aspects of our authentic selves. While feminism should have been nothing if not a celebration of our own unique characteristics, we insisted that we had no unique characteristics... that gender differences were hogwash, and a feminine woman was nothing more than a plaything for men.

Sometimes Christians live in a terror of universal obligation: AIDS over here, people to be saved over here, a crushing sense of low-level guilt every day of our lives. Question to ask: Where has God put me right now? I need to say no to a whole bunch of other things because if I don't say no I can't say yes to others.

Action gives power. Entire harmony pervades the universe of God. All the heavenly beings are in constant activity; and the Lord Jesus, in His life work, has given an example for every one.

I was going to go to a four-year college and be an anthropologist or to an art school and be an illustrator when a friend convinced me to learn photography at the University of Southern California. Little did I know it was a school that taught you how to make movies! It had never occurred to me that I'd ever have any interest in filmmaking.