Jocelyn Green > Jocelyn's Quotes

“All good writers write [terrible first drafts.] This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts. . . I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said you can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Adversity, if for no other reason, is of benefit, since it is sure to bring a season of sober reflection. People see clearer at such times. Storms purify the atmosphere.”
― Henry Ward Beecher

“Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep burning, unquenchable.”
― Henry Ward Beecher

“Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.”
― Henry Ward Beecher

“Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength. ”
― Henry Ward Beecher

“There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. ”
― George Carlin

“I'm not surprised he wants to challenge me here, where no one can protect me. He thinks I'm a weak woman. He thinks wrong.”
― Heather Day Gilbert, God's Daughter

“That little whisper—“You deserve it”—comes, I believe, from the worst part of our sinful natures, the part that always wants another cookie, a bigger house, a nicer TV. I’m pretty sure it’s the same voice that told Hitler he “deserved” Poland.”
― Phil Vischer, Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables

“I am very serious when I say this, beware of your dreams, for dreams make dangerous friends. We all have them—longings for a better life, a healthy child, a happy marriage, rewarding work. But dreams are, I have come to believe, misplaced longings. False lovers. Why? Because God is enough. Just God. And he isn’t “enough” because he can make our dreams come true—no, you’ve got him confused with Santa or Merlin or Oprah. The God who created the universe is enough for us—even without our dreams.”
― Phil Vischer, Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables

“Anything we create ourselves is not meant to carry the weight of our strongest desires and dreams. Anything we put our hope in, short of the Creator himself, will either crumble or fall short of the joy that God intended for us to have in him.”
― David Boudia, Greater Than Gold: From Olympic Heartbreak to Ultimate Redemption

“He give us a purpose in life, not because He needs us, but because He loves us.”
― Susie Larson, Your Beautiful Purpose: Discovering and Enjoying What God Can Do Through You

“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.”
― Frederick Douglass

“I used to think this life was about healing. Eventually, I learned its about dying--dying to self, dying to sin, dying to the world. . . so that in the next life, I can be made whole. So I die a little every day, until true living becomes the art of dying well.”
― Kate Motaung, A Place to Land: A Story of Longing and Belonging

“Then finally, I understood. This whole life is a rental. This whole body of mine is a borrowed house. And sometimes it's a good thing to be discontent with where we are, because this is not it. It's a good thing to feel like we're not at home and to long for another, for permanence, for stability, because we're not home yet. Having been washed by the astounding grace of the cross, praise God, my citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20).”
― Kate Motaung, A Place to Land: A Story of Longing and Belonging