We are destined for joy no matter how difficult our daily life. Something in us responds to the happiness other people experience, because we glimpse life as God intended it to be.

Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go there right away.

If things are tough, remember that every flower that ever bloomed had to go through a whole lot of dirt to get there. The almighty Father will use life's reverses to move you forward. So do not keep grieving about a bitter experience. The present is slipping by while you are regretting the past and worrying about the future. Regret will not prevent tomorrow's sorrows; it will only rob today of its strength.

Forgiveness is a stunning principle, your ticket out of hate and fear and chaos.

Have we forgotten that we're all born the same way: naked, wet, and hungry? Then things get worse!

Teaching literature is teaching how to read. How to notice things in a text that a speed-reading culture is trained to disregard, overcome, edit out, or explain away; how to read what the language is doing, not guess what the author was thinking; how to take evidence from a page, not seek a reality to substitute for it.

I think living to be one hundred would be great, but living to fifty twice would be so much better.