The real sign of His blessings is if you can have more and more happiness inside. Learn always to be happy; to be happy with the happiness of God. Even- minded and cheerful. This is the fastest route to divine bliss.

I was always seeking truth from childhood. And I identified truth with many things, with science, with politics, with art, and I kept coming back to the thought that without God I can't get to what I'm looking for.

I had always been very rational, but I'd always used reason in such a way as to convince myself that reasoning alone would not solve anything, really. Reasoning is theoretical. Until you feel with your heart, you don't know if a thing is true. I found that book was absolutely authentic. I absolutely knew it was the truth. My whole heart accepted it.

The churches had left me cold, but I thought there's got to be a God. I remember going out, this is in Charleston, South Carolina, and my desire then was to be a playwright, and I was studying theater, and I went out one night, late at night, and I asked, "What can God be if there is a God?" I wasn't sure there was a God, but if there is a God, what must he be? Well, he can't be a judge, who's up there just waiting for us to make a mistake so he can clap us into hell. There's got to be something more than that.

In a sense, each of us is an island. In another sense, however, we are all one. For though islands appear separate, and may even be situated at great distances from one another, they are only extrusions of the same planet, Earth.

Your enemy is still yourself. You don't have enemies. They may be self-styled. I have plenty of self-styled enemies. I don't wish them harm.

Happiness is an attitude of mind, born of the simple determination to be happy under all outward circumstances.