“The true gospel is a call to self-denial. It is not a call to self-fulfillment.”

“A job is a vocation only if someone else calls you to do it for them rather than for yourself. And so our work can be a calling only if it is reimagined as a mission of service to something beyond merely our own interests. Thinking of work mainly as a means of self-fulfillment and self-realization slowly crushes a person.”

“Some people call it self-confidence, I call it ambivalence to failure.”

“Self-doubt is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice “out there” calling me to be something I am not. It comes from a voice “in here” calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.”

“I don't even call it violence when it's in self defense; I call it intelligence.”