Alex > Alex's Quotes

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”
― St. Augustine

“Adventure is not outside man; it is within.”
― George Eliot

“...to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously. And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can't accept who God is; a Being that is love. We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people...That is why God tells us so many times to love each other.”
― Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

“And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?

It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.

I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.”
― Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road

“I am something of a recluse by nature. I am that cordless screwdriver that has to charge for twenty hours to earn ten minutes use. I need that much downtime. ”
― Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

“I could not have known then that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing.”
― Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road

“He sees because He loves, and therefore loves although He sees.”
― C S Lewis

“Before, I wandered as a diversion. Now I wander seriously and sit and read as a diversion.”
― Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

“Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

“Love is holy because it is like grace--the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

“Grace has a grand laughter in it.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”
― Oscar Wilde

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

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

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

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“I read for pleasure and that is the moment I learn the most.”
― Margaret Atwood

“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.”
― Italo Calvino, The Uses of Literature

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I'm more afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter.”
― Bob Goff, Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World

“Failure is just part of the process, and it's not just okay; it's better than okay. God doesn't want failure to shut us down. God didn't make it a three-strikes-and-you're-out sort of thing. It's more about how God helps us dust ourselves off so we can swing for the fences again. And all of this without keeping a meticulous record of our screw-ups.”
― Bob Goff, Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World

“Every day God invites us on the same kind of adventure. It's not a trip where He sends us a rigid itinerary, He simply invites us. God asks what it is He's made us to love, what it is that captures our attention, what feeds that deep indescribable need of our souls to experience the richness of the world He made. And then, leaning over us, He whispers, "Let's go do that together.”
― Bob Goff

“You don't need a plan; you just need to be present.”
― Bob Goff, Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World

“When you trust someone, you don't need to know everything.”
― Bob Goff, Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World

“Living a life fully engaged and full of whimsy and the kind of things that love does is something most people plan to do, but along the way they just kind of forget. Their dreams become one of those "we'll go there next time" deferrals. The sad thing is, for many there is no "next time" because passing on the chance to cross over is an overall attitude toward life rather than a single decision.”
― Bob Goff, Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World

“Meaning to send a thank-you note but then not doing it is exactly the same as never thinking to send one -- that person is still receiving zero thank you notes.”
― Kelly Williams Brown, Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps

“I am, by calling, a dealer in words; and words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Tears are the safety value of the heart when too much pressure is laid on it .”
― Albert Smith

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
― Howard Thurman