When I was hired, I was urged] not to seek a clear definition of what I'd be doing because that would also make it clear what I was not supposed to do. Be careful not to define yourself out of an interesting job.

Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. - Mrs. Whatsit

Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. - Mrs. Whatsit

Wouldn't it help you to realize that you really do live in an epic if your life had a soundtrack?

Don't picture yourselves as architects coming in with a complete blueprint, but rather as adventurers, trying to decipher a treasure map together.

As Buechner says, we are in constant danger of being not actors in the drama of our lives but reactors, "to go where the world takes us, to drift with whatever current happens to be running the strongest.

Yes—God is sovereign. And in his sovereignty he created a world in which the choices of men and angels matter. Tremendously. He has granted to us "the dignity of causation," as Pascal called it. Our choices have enormous consequences.

We often speak of a man who's done this successfully as a "self-made man." The appellation is usually spoken with a sense of admiration, but really it should be said in the same tones we might use of the dearly departed, or of a man who recently lost an arm—with sadness and regret. What the term really means is "an orphaned man who figured how to master some part of life on his own.

The adventures and work that we choose must fit the soul of the boy. One young man's adventure would be terrifying to another.

The outer life we live from ought (I ought to do this) rather than from desire (I want to do this) and management substitutes for mystery.

Just because we cannot see clearly te end of the road, that is no reason for not setting out on the essential journey.

We must use time as a tool, not as a crutch.