A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.

I may not have a degree, but I certainly got an education.

Jodi Picoult

Legitimized love always despises its easygoing brother.

Guy de Maupassant

The key for me was to have faith and trust in God to transform me. This was scary because the foundation that once kept me safe and secure was being taken from me!

Michael Barbarulo

Failed experiments in ecumenism and social politics suggest that unity is not to be found in mass movements of like-minded people sharing common perspectives and policies. ... Experience suggests that unity embraces the multitude of our differences, that community is often far from cozy, and that conversion does not mean changing others to our point of view but perhaps just the opposite -- weaning each and every person and institution from the arrogant exclusivism that prevents genuine conversation. ... God comes to us, to rescue us not only from our enemies but also from our friends, not only from strangers but also from familiars, that we might see beyond these discriminating distinctions to a new way of relating.

Sam Portaro, A Companion to the

In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact to shatter and destroy it is not so good.

Sun Tzu

The passionate controversies of one era are viewed as sterile preoccupations by another, for knowledge alters what we seek as well as what we find.

Freda Adler

I could never drive in a great big car people like me because I'm a man of the people, a hustler.

Terry McAuliffe

Even the brightest magnesium flare can do little against such dark except blind the eyes of the one holding it. Thus one craves what by seeing one has in fact not seen.

Mark Z. Danielewski

I am often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves and relinquishing the rest. Not that I would not. If I could, be... a great athlete and make a million a year, be a wit, a born -- vivant and a lady killer, as well as a philosopher, a philanthropist ... and saint. But the thing is simply impossible. The millionaire's work would run counter to the saint s; the bon-vivant and the philanthropist would trip each other up; the philosopher and the lady killer could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay. Such different characters may conceivably, at the outset of life. Be alike possible for a man. But to make any one of them actual, the rest must more of less be suppressed. So the seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully and pick out on which to stake his salvation. All other selves thereupon become unreal, but the fortunes of this self are real. Its failure are real failures, its triumphs real triumphs carrying shame and gladness with them.

William James

Human history in essence is the history of ideas.

H. G. Wells

Our Lord did not try to alter circumstances. He submitted to them. They shaped his life and eventually brought him to Calvary. I believe we miss opportunities and lovely secrets our Lord is waiting to teach us by not taking what comes.

Mother Maribel

I hate victims who respect their executioners.

JeanPaul Sartre