Amanda Wilkes > Amanda's Quotes

“True education is a kind of never ending story — a matter of continual beginnings, of habitual fresh starts, of persistent newness.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC

“Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?"
A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
― W.B. Yeats

“He had the heartening bulk of the aging athlete defeated by pastry”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“This was maybe best of all. I never once expected to be someone's nice surprise.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“It’s possible to perceive what is coming and still be dumbfounded when it happens.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“The evidence of my life lay before me, and I was unconvinced.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“They came one at a time or in shy small groups. I remember when sea-kindly showed up, a sentimental favorite, followed by desiccated and massive. Brusque appeared all by itself, which seemed apt; merry and boisterous arrived together. This would be a good time to ask for your patience if I use an adjective too many now and again—even now, some years on, they’re still returning. I’m just so glad to see them.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“I experienced an unspooling sense of freedom—genuine antagonism is something I’ve rarely encountered, and it felt good to respond with honesty instead of obsequious scraping.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“A person never knows what is next—I don’t, anyway. The surface of everything is thinner than we know. A person can fall right through, without any warning at all.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“Your tribe is always bigger than you think.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“It’s never been hard for me to fall in love, a quality that has yet to simplify one single day of my life.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“Contextualization is not — as is often argued — “giving people what they want to hear.”4 Rather, it is giving people the Bible’s answers, which they may not at all want to hear, to questions about life that people in their particular time and place are asking, in language and forms they can comprehend, and through appeals and arguments with force they can feel, even if they reject them.”
― Timothy Keller, Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City