“When success is uniform, the celebration becomes universal. Of which use is it to you to rejoice at the time your friend cries?”

“People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

“They, they, they. That was the problem with people like Joyce. They talked about the richness of their multicultural heritage and it sounded real good, until you noticed that they avoided black people. It wasn't a matter of conscious choice, necessarily, just a matter of gravitational pull, the way integration always worked, a one-way street. The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around. Only white culture could be neutral and objective. Only white culture could be nonracial, willing to adopt the occasional exotic into its ranks. Only white culture had individuals. And we, the half-breeds and the college-degreed, take a survey of the situation and think to ourselves, Why should we get lumped in with the losers if we don't want to? We become only so grateful to lose ourselves in the crowd, America's happy, faceless marketplace; and we're never so outraged as when a cabbie drives past us or the woman in the elevator clutches her purse, not so much because we're bothered by the fact that such indignities are what less fortunate coloreds have to put up with every single day of their lives-- although that's what we tell ourselves-- but because we're wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and speak impeccable English and yet have somehow been mistaken for an ordinary nigger. Don't know who I am? I'm an individual!”

“Love stories are built around people's idiosyncrasies.”

“It is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside than to occupy a cold bleak hill and sleep under frost and snow without cloaths or blankets.”

“The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health or we suffer in soul or we get fat.”

“Temptation is not a sin. It is the yielding that is sin. All temptation is from the devil.”

“Desire is the ingredient that changes the hot water of mediocrity to the steam of outstanding success.”

“The Right Thought plus the Right People in the Right Environment at the Right Time for the Right Reason = the Right Result”

“Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?

“• The effect of laughter on the body is immediate. Laughing actually lowers blood pressure, reduces stress hormones, and increases muscle flexion. • Laughter increases your resistance to infections. • Laughter also triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers, and produces a general sense of well-being.”

“Bringing enjoyment to God, living for his pleasure, is the first purpose of your life. When you fully understand this truth, you will never again have a problem with feeling insignificant. It proves your worth. If you are that important to God, and he considers you valuable enough to keep with him for eternity, what greater significance could you have?”

“Don’t be unwilling to take those little steps; in them are residing great journeys. Move on.”

“Find out your most limiting tasks and deal with them as early as possible. Use a diary, and jot little points of reminder about specific tasks for reference later.”

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest.”