My favorite quotes

Beggars in Spain (one of my all-time favorite books)

"What the strong owe beggars is to ask each one why he is a beggar and act accordingly. Because community is the assumption, not the result. And only by giving non-productiveness the same individuality as excellence, and acting accordingly, does one fulfill the obligation to the beggars in Spain." - Leisha Camden

"Both generations saw that it's not possible to have both equality, which is just another name for what you call 'community solidarity', and individual excellence. When individuals are free to become anything at all, some will become geniuses, and some will become resentful beggars. Some will benefit themselves and their communities, and others will benefit no one and just loot whatever they can. Equality disappears. You can't have both equality and the freedom to pursue individual excellence. So two generations chose inequality. My father chose it for me. Kenzo Yagai chose it for the American economy. A man called Calvin Hawke.... picked the side of the born-unequal, and tried to even up the equation a little, and excellence-be-damned. Of all of us, only Tony Indivino and your grandmother tried to create a community that put just as much value on its own solidarity, the equality of those who were included as members, as on those members' individual diverse achievements. Jennifer failed, because it can't be done." - Leisha Camden

"There are no permanent beggars in Spain. Or anywhere else. The beggar you give a dollar to today, might change the world tomorrow. Or become father to the man who will. Or grandfather, or great-grandfather. There is no stable ecology of trade, as I thought once, when I was very young. There is no stable anything, much less stagnant anything given enough time. And no non-productive anything either. Beggars are only gene lines temporarily between communities." - Leisha Camden

Beggars and Choosers

"Mary once told me that there were only four important questions you could ask about any human being. How does he fill up his time? How does he feel about how he fills up his time? What does he love? How does he react to those he perceives as either inferior or superior to him? 'If you make people feel inferior, even unintentionally,' she had said, her dark eyes intense, 'they will be uncomfortable around you. In that situation, some people will attack, some will ridicule to "cut you down to size," but some will admire, and learn from you. If you make people feel superior, some will react by dismissing you, some by wielding power just because they can, in greater or lesser ways. But some will be moved to protect and help. All this is just as true of a junior lodge klieg as of a group of governments.'"

Beggars Ride

The rest of the world had forgotten that Community had a biological base as well as a social one. A human being belonged not only to those communities he chose - professional and geographical - but to that into which he was born. His first obligation must be loyalty to the community that had nurtured him, or the entire chain of nurturing generations broke down. And that loyalty must be a choice, not a mindless dogma. That was finally what it meant to be fully human. Not the pack loyalty of wolves, but that people could choose other than their pack, and choose not to. The moral choice. The Sleepers, dazzled by the technology that should be servant and not master, had forgotten that kind of morality. Too bad for the Sleepers. They would destroy themselves. - Jennifer Sharifi

Jane Eyre

I maintained a grave silence for some minutes.
"You mu'n't'a think too hardly of me." she again remarked.
"But I do think hardly of you." I said. "And I'll tell you why. Not so much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me as an imposter, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I had no brass and no house. Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am, and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime." - Jane

Death Comes for the Archbishop

"The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always."

"His nose and chin are getting to be close neighbours now..."

"Their foolish ways no longer offend me, their very faults are dear to me." - Father Joseph

"Nothing one could say of Father Vaillant explained him. The man was much greater than the sum of his qualities. He added a glow to whatever kind of human society he was dropped into."

"Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky. The landscape one longed for when one was far away, the thing all about one, the world one actually lived in, was the sky, the sky!"

"... Father Latour judged that, just as it was the white man's way to assert himself in any landscape, to change it, make it over a little (at least to leave some mark of memorial of his sojourn), it was the Indian's way to pass through a country without disturbing anything; to pass and leave no trace, like fish through water, or birds through air."

"In his Denver congregation there were men who owned mines and saw-mills and flourishing businesses, but they needed all their money to push these enterprises. Down among the Mexicans, who owned nothing but a mud house and a burro, he could always raise money. If they had anything at all, they gave."

"He knelt, and Father Vaillant, having blessed him, knelt and was blessed in turn. They embraced each other for the past-for the future."

"For many years Duty separated us, but death has brought us together. The time is not far distant when I shall join him. Meanwhile, I am enjoying to the full that period of reflection which is the happiest conclusion to a life of action."

"I shall not die of a cold, my son. I shall die of having lived."

Gallimore (an exchange from page 110)

The counselor raised his leathery hand to rest with surprising lightness on Colwyn's head. "I see much in you that is reminiscent of me. Learn from my errors, boy. Do not turn your back on love when it is offered to you, and when the way of peace is revealed, seek it with all your strength. Do not allow your pride to hinder you."

Had anyone else dared to utter such words to him, he would've flattened them on his way out of the room. Instead, he tucked the wisdom away, unwilling to consider it at the moment.

"Leave now. Do not return home nor wait for the day of attack. Find a far-off country. Start a new life."

"And you?"

"Me?" The wizened counselor snorted his amusement. "I'm too old to heed my own advice. And, as I've said, the queen's ear is still mine. I've a feeling that therein lies the hope of England. God be with you, my boy."

Hamlet

"Neither a borrower, nor a lender be" - Polonius

"This above all: to thine own self be true" - Polonius

"I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God
hath given you one face, and you make yourselves
another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and
nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness
your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on 't; it hath
made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages;
those that are married already, all but one, shall
live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a
nunnery, go." - Hamlet

"Not a whit, we defy augury; there's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves,
what is 't to leave betimes?
Let be." - Hamlet

If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat

"The greatest hitters in the world fail two times out of three. But if you don't step up to the plate, you will never know the glory of what it is to hit a home run."

"Millions of people in churches these days could be called "pew potatoes". They want some of the comfort associated with spirituality, but they don't want the risk and challenge that go along with actually following Jesus."

"Take some time to imagine the scene where you and God review your life together. What single step could you take today to most minimize the regret factor at the end of your life?"

The first response to a God-sized calling is generally fear. Henry Blackaby writes, "Some people say God will never ask me to do something I can't do. I've come to the place in my life that, if the assignment I sense God is giving me is something that I know I can handle, I know it is probably not from God. The kind of assignments God gives in the Bible are always God-sized. They're always beyond what people can do, because He wants to demonstrate His nature, His strength, His provision, and His kindness to His people, and to the watching world. This is the only the world will come to know Him."

One morning after they had troubling dreams we're told, "When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled, so he asked Pharaoh's officers who were with him under house arrest, 'why are your faces downcast today?'" This is a striking detail in the story. It would be easy for Joseph to become isolated, to focus only on his own disappointment. When life does not turn out the way you plan, you forget that other people face disappointment, too. You may begin to think only about your own hurts. Your world becomes so small that your pain is the only pain you notice. This is the death of the heart, the loss of meaning. Instead, Joseph realizes that he is not the only one for whom life has not turned out according to plan. He lives the way Jesus would: he treats disgraced prisoners like human beings, he notices them, asks about them, and expresses genuine interest in them. At a time when we would expect him to be self-preoccupied, Joseph is sincerely concerned for others' well-being. "Why are your faces downcast today?" He does this even though he is not expecting anything in return, and by his noticing, Joseph gives meaning to his presence in prison.

The point of memorizing Scripture is not to see how many verses you can memorize. The point is what happens to your mind in the process of rehearsing Scripture.

Paul says that while we are waiting for God to set everything right, we suffer. But suffering produces endurance, endurance character, and character hope. God is producing these qualities in us as we wait. Waiting is not just something we have to do while we get what we want. It is part of the process of becoming what God wants us to be. What does it meant to wait on the Lord? Let's start with a word about Biblical waiting is not. It is not a passive waiting around for something to happen that will allow you to escape your trouble. People sometimes say, "I'm just waiting on the Lord," as an excuse not to face up to reality, own up to their responsibility, or take appropriate action. I've heard people with horrible financial habits, impulsive spending, refusal to save, in the midst of a big money mess say, "we're waiting for the Lord to provide." This fits into the general theological category of "don't be stupid." Waiting on the Lord in this case, does not mean sitting around hoping you get a letter from Visa that reads, "Bank error in your favor, collect $200." It probably means dragging your little financial self to a source where you can learn Biblical principles for a life of good stewardship. It may mean cultivating new financial habits like budgeting, tithing, putting off buying things until you actually have enough money to pay for them. Biblical waiting is not passive. It is not a way to evade unpleasant reality. "Waiting on the Lord" is a confident, disciplined, expectant, active, and sometimes painful clinging to God. Waiting on the Lord is a continual daily decision to say, "I will trust you, and I will obey you. Even though the circumstances of my life are not turning out the way I want them to, and may never turn out the way I would choose, I am betting everything on you. I have no plan B."

We can wait with confidence, because waiting reminds us that we are waiting for someone. The single most important activity in waiting, is prayer. Prayer allows us to wait without worry.

The Shack

"Mackenzie, the Bible doesn't teach you to follow rules. It is a picture of Jesus. While words may tell you what God is like, and even what He may want from you, you cannot do any of it on your own. Life and living is in Him, and in no other. My goodness, you didn't think you could live the righteousness of God on your own, did you?" - Papa

"Well, I thought so, sort of. But you gotta admit rules and principals are simpler than relationships." - Mack

"It is true that relationships are a whole lot messier than rules, but rules will never give you answers to the deep questions of the heart, and they will never love you." - Papa

"I'm realizing how few answers I have to anything. You know, you've turned me upside down or inside out or something." - Mack

"MacKenzie. Religion is about having the right answers, and, some of their answers are right. But I am about the process that takes you to the Living Answer, and once you get to Him, He will change you from the inside. There are a lot of smart people who are able to say a lot of right things from their brain, because they have been told what the right answers are, but they don't know me at all. So really, how can their answers be right, even if they are right, if you understand my drift?" - Papa