The worst thing one person can do to another is to reduce their identity to being only half of something. When someone is treated as half of or less than half of one identity, they’re not being treated like a human at all. Everyone should have the right to individuality.
~ Gretel (The Land of Stories)
I don’t think anyone can ever stop loving someone entirely. Sometimes love turns to hate, but I’m not sure it’s possible to ever stop feeling for them. Despite whatever feelings she has left over for Jack, I have not doubts about her affection for me.
~ Froggy/Prince Charlie (Land of Stories)
“It doesn’t matter how greatly you’ve been hurt or how much you’re hurting, it’s what you do with the pain that counts.”
~ Froggy, The Land of Stories
Life is God’s novel. Let Him write it.
~ Isaac Bashevis Singer
If an old horn can amplify music, then perhaps our flawed lives can magnify the goodness of God. We’re the megaphone; the music and the power come from Him.
~ David McCasland
Grace is everything Jesus. Grace lives because He does, works because He works, and matters because He matters. To be saved by grace is to be saved by Him, not by an idea, rule, or church membership, but by Jesus himself, who will sweep into Heaven anyone who so much as gives Him the nod. Not, mind you, in response to a finger snap, religious chant, or secret handshake. Grace won’t be stage-managed. It’s like Jesus himself: uncontainable, untamable.
Like a wild, whitewater kayak ride that is thrilling and scary and joyful. Grace isn’t merely an app to be acquired. It’s an adventure to be lived.
~ Max Lucado (One God, One Plan, One Life)
When the heart is dry, the eye is dry.
~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”
— Rumi
This humble soul loved, and that was all.
~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:6-9 NIV)
A little garden in which to walk, and immensity in which to dream. At one’s feet that which can be cultivated and plucked; over head that which one can study and meditate upon: some flowers on earth, and all the stars in the sky.
~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
It is nice to be important, but it is more important to be nice.
~ Spotted on a notepad @ Papemelroti
The most beautiful of altars is the soul of an unhappy creature consoled and thanking God.
~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Let us never fear robbers nor murderers. Those are dangers from without, petty dangers. Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves. What matters it what threatens our head or our purse! Let us think only of that which threatens our soul.
~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
You don’t get to make up most of your story. You get to make peace with it.
You don’t get to demand your life, like a given. You get to accept your life, like a gift.
~ Ann Voskamp
… to transform the grief which gazes upon a grave by showing him the grief which fixes it’s gaze upon a star.
~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
…the most sublime things are often those which are the least understood…
~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables.
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
Thorin of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together. For the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
~ Khalil Gibran
Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is love coming at you that has nothing to do with you. Grace is being loved when you are unlovable.
~ Paul Zahl
Pixies And Stardust 