My friends don't think they're rich, because they know someone who's richer.

If we're honest with ourselves, most of us know the one thing we lack.

When I ask God to change my actions, that honesty about my own inconsistent behaviors forces me not to be so hard on other believers. Humble acknowledgment of the plank in my own eye gives me more patience with the specks in everyone else's (see Matthew 7:1-5). Instead of pointing the finger at others, let's allow God to examine us.

I was once a graduate student in Victorian literature, and I believe as the Victorian novelists did, that a novel isn't simply a vehicle for private expression, but that it also exists for social examination. I firmly believe this.

Comparison is and will always be the thief of all joy.

Oh, child. The best thing is to know. I always tell 'em, best to be who you is. What you is deep down inside. Ain't no other good way of livin'.

But ain't it always the way, Birdie, that the easiest faults to find in other people are the ones you got yourself?

Eventually you have to stop letting people define you and start defining yourself. It's a lesson I'm both teaching and learning. Name yourself. Claim yourself. Classroom Constitution, Article Twelve.

What should matter is whether or not you can live with who you are.

Sooner or later, you have to shed your family's expectations and run the race on your own.

A secretary must think like a man act like a lady look like a girl - and work like a dog.

I certainly don't disparage someone whose attitude towards their work is utterly different from mine - that's up to them.