None of us wants to admit that we hate someone... When we deny our hate we detour around the crisis of forgiveness. We suppress our spite, make adjustments, and make believe we are too good to be hateful. But the truth is that we do not dare to risk admitting the hate we feel because we do not dare to risk forgiving the person we hate.

The moments of grace usually give us more than one good thing we can do, and we do well if we manage a pretty good batting average. ... It is an opportunity that God sews into the fabric of a routine situations - It is a chance to do something creative, something helpful, something healing, something that makes one unmarked spot in the world better off for our having been there.

Self control is about being in charge of the direction our lives are taking. Now for the paradox: We get control of our lives, ultimately, not by will power but by surrender.

Our history is an inevitable component of our being. One thing only can release us from the grip of our history. That one thing is forgiveness.

You and I were created for joy, and if we miss it we miss the reason for our existence. If our joy is honest joy, it must somehow be congruous with human tragedy. This is the test of joy's integrity. It is compatible with pain. Only the heart that hurts has a right to joy.

When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it.

Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that cannot be turned off. It plays the painful scene over and over again inside your mind...And each time it plays you feel the clap of pain again...Forgiving turns off the videotape of pained memory Forgiving sets you free.