“Arrogance and Conceit are the mother and father of a closed mind.Charles Jennings, "Journey of the Chosen".”

“The task he has chosen for himself, of wooing my mother with a bright red pickup truck, a Patsy Cline tape, and a string of malapropisms, is ample justification to me for not taking the world too seriously, its relentless heartbreak notwithstanding.”

“Undisguised clarity is easily mistaken for arrogance.”

“... Mr. Purty has cheered me up. The task he has chosen for himself, of wooing my mother with a bright red pickup truck, a Patsy Cline tape, and a string of malapropisms, is ample justification to me for not taking the world too seriously, its relentless heartbreak notwithstanding… (Richard Russo, Straight Man)”

“Having made the decision to love, had I chosen life instead of death?”

“THE MALE JOURNEY t some point in time, a man needs to embark on a risky -journey. It's a necessary adventure that takes him into uncertainty, and it almost always involves some form of difficulty or failure. On this journey the man learns to trust God more than he trusts a sense of right and wrong or his own sense of self-worth.”

“Denial of our pattern of failure seems to be a kind of practical atheism or chosen ignorance among many believers and clergy.”