"It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life. The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated... it is finished when it surrenders."

"Darwinism doesn't explain where gravity comes from. It doesn't explain where thermodynamics comes from. It doesn't explain where the laws of physics come from. It doesn't explain where matter came from."

"Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over gain, and you will grow stronger until have accomplished a purpose - not the one you began with perhaps, but one you'll be glad to remember."

"Screaming at children over their grades, especially to the point of the child's tears, is child abuse, pure and simple. It's not funny and it's not good parenting. It is a crushing, scarring, disastrous experience for the child. It isn't the least bit funny."

"The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this; decide what you want."

"The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want."

"I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it sis my duty ... This is my highest and best use as a human."

"Every time you go in, it's like starting over. You don't know how you did the other records. You're learning all over. It's some weird musician amnesia, or maybe the road wipes it out."

"Without duty, life is sort of boneless; it cannot hold itself together."

"There's some quality you get when you're not totally comfortable. When you're not doing what you're used to, you could completely fall on your face. You could completely blow it."

"This Forest eats itself and lives forever."

"If you ask me, when something extraordinary shows up in your life in the middle of the night, you give it a name and make it the best home you can."

"You see mother, you had no life of your own. They have no idea. One has only a life of one's own."

"He was getting that look he gets, oh boy, like Here comes Moses tromping down off of Mount Syanide with ten fresh ways to wreck your life."

"Hunger of the body is altogether different from the shallow, daily hunger of the belly. Those who have known this kind of hunger cannot entirely love, ever again, those who have not."

"She kept swimming out into life because she hadn't yet found a rock to stand on."

"The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof."

"I don't want to be a leader. I want to be one who goes around with a little oil can and offer help when I see a breakdown."

"Claudia's the sort of girl who goes through life holding onto the sides."

"This perhaps is what is meant by hiraeth: a lifelong yearning for what is gona and out of reach."

"It’s just life. You can’t beat life."

"There would never be any room in her for anything else. No room for anything but the realization of what she had done."

"Braininess is not attractive unless combined with some signs of elegance; class."

"And now such a warm commotion, such busy love."