God made a whole beautiful earth and decided to put you in it, to experience all of this beauty. You can’t do that watching television all the time.
The heart responds to the conflict within a story.
When I was in love there was somebody in the world who was more important than me, and that, given all that happened at the fall of man, is a miracle, like something God forgot to curse.
It was a haunting feeling, the sort of sensation you get when you wonder whether you are two people, the other of which does things you can’t explain, bad and terrible things.
I can’t do it. It would be like, say, trying to fall in love with somebody, or trying to convince yourself that your favorite food is pancakes. You don’t decide those things, they just happen to you. If God is real, He needs to happen to me.
Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them.
When a relationship is right, it is no more possible to wake up and want out of the marriage than it is to wake up and stop believing in God. What is, is what is.
Without the Christian explanation of original sin, the seemingly silly story of Adam and Eve and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, there was no explanation of conflict. At all.
The most attractive characteristic in a person is the story they are telling the world. We stop and stare at stories.
God doesn’t give us crying, pooping children because he wants to advance our careers.
People want to join a great story. If you want to lead, tell one with your life.
If honesty is the key to intimacy, it means we don’t have to be perfect and we don’t have to pretend to be perfect.
Great writers know what to cut out. It’s the same in life. Clear ambitions. Clear relationships. This is the stuff of good story.
A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.
The greatest stories go to those who don’t give in to fear.
Everybody wants to be somebody fancy. Even if they’re shy.
Every human being is searching for a deep sense of meaning, and yet we’re all chasing success. We’ve confused one for the other.
We don’t naturally want to take responsibility for our lives. We want to give the responsibility to someone else. We blame them when our lives aren’t good.
I think that’s the true litmus test for someone who has become closer to Jesus: their heart is more loving, accepting, childlike, less believing that they have all the answers and more believing in Him.
I don’t find anyone more noble than Jesus.