“You find yourself through adversity.... The things that hurt us most today make us stronger tomorrow.”

“Anything you want to do is possible. Believe in yourself, see yourself doing it, walk like your going to do it, talk like your going to do it, and dream the dream of doing it, and it will be so....... Everything starts with a dream and believing in your own abilities. What everyone else says about your dreams is none of your business. Believe in yourself and big things will happen!”

“Only People can change themselves. People can change the way they think, act, and their perspective on life. People have the power and choice to believe in themselves, their abilities, and the future they dream to build. People change themselves which changes the opinions of others, but at the end of the day the only opinion that matters is the one you believe of yourself.”

“True love is like a metal tested in a fire. Fires of adversity surround us daily. Are we to love only when it is merely convenient? Like gold or silver, which very hot fire must heat to purge them of impurities, love must be thrust into the fire from time to time to make it purer, stronger and more resilient. And in the same way, live shines its brightest right out of the flames.”

“Children...need most of the same things adults need--consideration, respect for their work, the knowledge that they and the things they do are taken seriously.”

“A citizen walking through the airport today is bombarded with 1984-style propaganda messages that are designed to make us fear some amorphous threat and also be suspicious of others. The government designs these messages to make us feel dependent and heavily lorded over in every aspect of our lives. These messages are becoming ever more pervasive, hitting us even in grocery stores when we are shopping.”

“There is within us a fundamental dis-ease, an unquenchable fire that renders us incapable, in this life, of ever coming to full peace. This desire lies at the center of our lives, in the marrow of our bones, and in the deep recesses of the soul. At the heart of all great literature, poetry, art, philosophy, psychology, and religion lies the naming and analyzing of this desire. Spirituality is, ultimately, about what we do with that desire. What we do with our longings, both in terms of handling the pain and the hope they bring us, that is our spirituality . . . Augustine says: ‘You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.’ Spirituality is about what we do with our unrest.”