Tom King > Tom's Quotes

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
― C.S. Lewis

“There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

“A fanatic is a man who, when he's lost sight of his purpose, redoubles his effort.”
― Poul Anderson, Harvest of Stars

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.”
― Isaac Asimov

“We read to know we're not alone.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
― C.S. Lewis

“It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say 'It's as plain as the nose on your face.' But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?”
― Isaac Asimov, I, Robot

“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning...”
― C.S. Lewis

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
― C.S. Lewis

“One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries.”
― A.A. Milne

“It's called civilization. Women invented it, and every time you men blow it all to bits, we just invent it again.”
― Orson Scott Card, The Folk of the Fringe

“Love is finding that the things you like best about yourself are not in you at all, but in the person who completes you”
― Orson Scott Card, Sarah

“Happiness is not a life without pain, but rather a life in which the pain is traded for a worthy price.”
― Orson Scott Card, Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

“Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasure most dear.”
― Orson Scott Card, Children of the Mind

“There remained the sea, which is free to all, and particularly alluring to those who feel themselves at war with humanity.”
― Rafael Sabatini

“Because when you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worth while.”
― Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“If you can change your mind, you can change your life.”
― William James

“There is only one reason to do a charity golf tournament. To make money! But while golf tournaments can be exhausting, time-consuming and fraught with risk, they can be downright satisfying and profitable if done right. Ultimately a golf tournament may be the hardest work you'll ever love. - Tom King”
― Tom King, Going for the Green!: An Insider's Guide to Raising Money With Charity Golf

“We may be rats in a maze as far as the Obama administration is concerned, but in Texas, we are rats with a firm knowledge of just where the button is and how to push it. It helps us put up with all the nonsense and it would do the folks in Washington well to remember that. - Tom King ("Why the Secession Talk in Texas")”
― Tom King

“So rather than spending my golden years searching for the meaning of my life, I rather believe I'll just keep on trying to make some meaning out of my life right up until I pitch over nose first into the dirt for that little nap. - Tom King (I Ain't Afraid of No Grim Reaper)”
― Tom King

“A Christian's duty is to win souls for Christ. It would seem to me that tearing down a church you disagree with is like shooting holes in someone else's overloaded lifeboat to prove it's not as safe as yours. (from "Bullies, Wolves, Sheep and Sheepdogs)”
― Tom King

“It is when we are at our darkest hour, when we can see no evidence that God loves us or that he is even there to listen to our prayers, much less answer them...and yet, we still obey.

It is then that the devil is reminded that his cause is lost.”
― Tom King

“Socialists are convinced socialism will work if it's only managed by the right people. It's one of the reasons so many socialist countries wind up led by dictators. Socialist leaders inevitably become convinced that only they can manage the state properly, so it would be folly, they reason, to give up their hard-won power. That's how socialism always seems to wind up with people like Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Chairman Mao in charge.”
― Tom King