“I don’t believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process.”

Find a way to get paid for doing what you love. Then every paycheck will be a bonus.

Having the courage to stand up and pursue your dreams will give you life’s greatest reward and life’s greatest adventure.

Learn from every mistake because every experience, encounter, and particularly your mistakes are there to teach you and force you into being more who you are.

The only courage you will need is the courage to live the life you are meant to.

Pray as if it’s up to God, work as if it’s up to you.

Follow your passion. It will lead you to your purpose.

Ignoring your passion is like dying a slow death.

You are not your circumstances. You are your possibilities. If you know that, you can do anything.

Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.

Every choice in life either moves you forward or keeps you stuck.

There is no greater gift you can give or receive than to honor your calling. It’s why you were born. And how you become most truly alive.

You cannot wait for someone to save you, to help you, to complete you. No one can complete you. You complete yourself.

No experience is wasted. Everything in life is happening to grow you up, to fill you up, to help you become more of who you were created to be.

If friends disappoint you over and over, that’s in large part your own fault.

You teach people how to treat you.

Worrying is wasted time. Use the same energy for doing something about whatever worries you.

Of course I believe in marriage. Commitment to one other person in life is glorious.

I believe if God doesn’t give you a miracle, you are a miracle of God for somebody else’s salvation.

Never let any mistake cause you to stop believing in yourself. Learn from it and go on.

When scientifically investigating the natural world, the only thing worse than a blind believer is a seeing denier.

I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.

I feel very strongly that curves are natural, womanly and real. I shall continue to hope that women are able to believe in themselves for who they are inside, and not feel under such incredible pressure to be unnaturally thin.

One lady told me that before she saw ‘Sounder’ she didn’t believe black people could love each other, have deep relationships in the same way as white people.

But Christ’s lore and his apostles twelve, He taught and first he followed it himself.