David > David's Quotes

“People who say, “it is not my fault,” continuously fail. People who say, “I’ve done no wrong,” have not done enough right. People who say, “I am done!” are never done repeating the cycle. Even in the privacy of our own thoughts, we can’t sow lies and reap truth.”
― Katina Ferguson

“Looking into the spirit of others is sometimes like looking into a pond. Though we aim to see what's deep in the bottom, we are often distracted by our own reflection.”
― Katina Ferguson

“Though the funny thing about never being asked for anything is that after a while you start to feel like maybe you don’t have anything worth giving.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician King

“Everybody wanted to be the hero of their own story. Nobody wanted to be comic relief.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician King

“It's true," Eliot said. "Statistically, historically, and however else you want to look at it, you are almost never right. A monkey making life decisions based on its horoscope in USA Today would be right more often than you. But in this case, yes, you were right. Don't spoil it.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician King

“[F]or just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else. It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“In a way fighting was just like using magic. You said the words, and they altered the universe. By merely speaking you could create damage and pain, cause tears to fall, drive people away, make yourself feel better, make your life worse.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“You can’t just decide to be happy.”

“No, you can’t. But you can sure as hell decide to be miserable. Is that what you want?”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“When the oldest Chatwin, melancholy Martin, opens the cabinet of the grandfather clock that stands in a dark, narrow back hallway in his aunt’s house and slip through into Fillory...it’s like he’s opening the covers of a book, but a book that did what books always promised to do and never ac tually quite did: get you out, really out, of where you were and into something better.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“Everybody’s forgiven you but you. And you are so far behind us.” “You might be surprised about that.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“The South believed an educated Negro to be a dangerous Negro. And the South was not wholly wrong; for education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent. Nevertheless, men strive to know.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“It is not enough for the Negroes to declare that color-prejudice is the sole cause of their social condition, nor for the white South to reply that their social condition is the main cause of prejudice. They both act as reciprocal cause and effect, and a change in neither alone will bring the desired effect. Both must change, or neither can improve to any great extent."(p.88)...."Only by a union of intelligence and sympathy across the color-line in this critical period of the Republic shall justice and right triumph,”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“It didn’t matter where you were, if you were in a room full of books you were at least halfway home.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician's Land

“I had a lot of Hell that God needed to squeeze out of me, and believe me, sometimes when the Hell leaves you it screams at God on the way out. And when the pain from your past leaves you, sometimes you have to feel it again on the way out. There's nothing we can say or do that can separate us from God's love.”
― Brian Welch, Save Me from Myself: How I Found God, Quit Korn, Kicked Drugs, and Lived to Tell My Story

“Sin is when you turn away from God—or, in the other language, alienation occurs when the ego, that erratic, unreliable driver of the personality, temporarily turns aside from the great quest for integration with the inner self, the self that’s authentic, the self that contains the potential to be fully human, fully fulfilled and fully alive.”
― Susan Howatch, Mystical Paths

“No demon can withstand the power of Christ,” said my father, repeating the words he had used long ago, and what he meant was that no dissociated mind can withstand the integrating power of the Living God whose spark lies deep in the core of the unconscious mind and who can not only heal the shattered ego but unify the entire personality.”
― Susan Howatch, Mystical Paths

“Sin/ alienation is psychological disease which if unhealed can lead to the living hell of lost hopes and blighted lives.”
― Susan Howatch, Mystical Paths

“The sad part was that everything I said was true but I was going about the healing in entirely the wrong way. As I was to be taught later, you can’t heal the sick by force-feeding them with ideas they’re not ready to accept; you can’t cure people by the simple imposition of your will. It’s the power of the Holy Spirit that heals, not the power of a would-be wonder-worker trying to play God.”
― Susan Howatch, Mystical Paths

“So many people fail to realise that the greatest journey one can ever take is the journey to the very centre of one’s being.”
― Susan Howatch, Mystical Paths

“Science destroys only the false ideas about religion; the true ideas it complements and explores.)”
― Susan Howatch, Mystical Paths

“Religion is about integration, about successfully bringing the selfish ego into line with the centre of the personality where God exists, as a divine spark, in every human being. Religion is about helping man to live in harmony with his true self and to become the person God’s designed him to be.”
― Susan Howatch, Mystical Paths

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis

“I took in a deep breath, and smoke twisted around my head as I let it slip through my teeth. “Do you know what my favorite show was when I was a little kid?”

The look again. “I would have no idea.”

“Doctor Who. British sci-fi show.”

“I am familiar with it. Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, and Matt—“

“No,” I said. “The new show’s great, but I grew up on the old one. The low-budget, rubber monster show with Tom Baker and Peter Davison. I watched it on PBS all the time as a kid.”

I looked out at the dark ruins of Hollywood, at the stumbling shadows dotting the streets as far as you could see. The only other living person within half a mile was standing behind me, her eyes boring into my head.

“The Doctor didn’t have super-powers or weapons or anything like that. He was just a really smart guy who always tried to do the right thing. To help people, no matter what. That struck me when I was a kid. The idea that no matter how cold and callous and heartless the world seemed, there was somebody out there who just wanted to make life better. Not better for worlds or countries in some vague way. Just better for people trying to live their lives, even if they didn’t know about him.”

I turned back to her and tapped my chest. “That’s what this suit’s always been about. Not scaring people like you or Gorgon do. Not some sort of pseudo-sexual roleplay or repressed emotions. I wear this thing, all these bright colors, because I want people to know someone’s trying to make their lives better. I want to give them hope.”
― Peter Clines, Ex-Heroes

“He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful graces of God.”
― William Kent Krueger, Ordinary Grace

“Politics is ugly. Never doubt what small men will do for great power.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, The Windup Girl

“Hang a man for no real reason and you might get some grumblings from the townships. But force sobriety upon us, and you'll be picking up the pieces for a bloodydamn month.”
― Pierce Brown, Red Rising

“Sometimes the thoughts in my head get so bored they go out for a stroll through my mouth. This is rarely a good thing.”
― Scott Westerfeld

“If all you are doing is spending time with the struggling members of your church and you are not building proactively into your church's culture, and you are being shortsighted and limiting the effectiveness of your ministry.”
― James MacDonald, Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling: Changing Lives with God's Changeless Truth

“In healthy churches, the pastors life, not just his words, sets the tone for the church.”
― James MacDonald, Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling: Changing Lives with God's Changeless Truth