“We have a great deal of worth in the eyes of God. I never tire of saying over and over again that God loves us. It is a wonderful thing that God Himself loves me tenderly. That is why we should have courage, joy, and the conviction that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.”

“What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.”

“Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results.”

“The Law of Forced Efficiency says, “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important things.”

“someone you considered a friend will kick you to the curb because you stop hanging out so much with the fellas to be with your girlfriend. Prioritize your relationships and you will discover who your real friends are.”

“Don't quench the courageous spirit you begun with; you'll still need it when the going gets tough and all things seem impossible on your journey!”

“As for the world system of evil, we are to be separated from it. This then is our problem: to associate with and love those who are involved in the world without being contaminated, influenced, or swayed by them. This distinction can be achieved only by a close walk with Christ, by constant prayer, and by seeking the Holy Spirit’s leadership every hour of the day. We are in the world, but the world is not to be in us.”

“I had begun to see a new map of the world, one that was frightening in its simplicity, suffocating in its implications. We were always playing on the white man's court, Ray had told me, by the white man's rules. If the principal, or the coach, or a teacher, or Kurt, wanted to spit in your face, he could, because he had power and you didn't. If he decided not to, if he treated you like a man or came to your defense, it was because he knew that the words you spoke, the clothes you wore, the books you read, your ambitions and desires, were already his. Whatever he decided to do, it was his decision to make, not yours, and because of that fundamental power he held over you, because it preceded and would outlast his individual motives and inclinations, any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning.”

“Successful people don't have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward.”

“As long as Satan is loose in the world and our hearts are dominated by his evil passions, it will never be easy or popular to be a follower of Christ.”

“Thousands of people have entered churches without discovering a vital experience with Jesus Christ. The substitutes have been handed them in the guise of religious rituals, good works, community effort, or social reform . . .none of which can gain a person a right relationship with God.”

“Ben learned an important lesson: sometimes to survive you need to face your fear and overcome it.”

“Before you go to live the life you are being forced by others to live, remember they'll never be there to share your challenges and emotions that come with it together with you!”

“When you give of yourself, it benefits you, the organization, and the receiver.”

“Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”