“Greatness takes time, Banu Nahida. Often the mightiest things have the humblest beginnings.”

“When I look back over every struggle, heartache, disappointment, failure, and moment of fear, I recognize that God has been with me through it all. And I know that He will continue to be with me. There is no promise in Scripture that our lives will be free from pain or that everything will always go smoothly. But there is the promise that He is always with us, even in the darkest storms of our lives. We can find some peace in the middle of the hardest experiences because He is there in the middle of the storm. I can't imagine living my life without the truth of that promise.”

“To procrastinate is to be entitled. It is arrogant. It assumes there will be a later. It assumes you’ll have the discipline to get to it later (despite not having the discipline now).”

“Monsters cut children open and call it progress. Monsters murder entire groups of people without blinking but get upset when they have to wash human ash from their garden strawberries. Monsters are the ones who watch other people do these things and do nothing to stop it.”

“My friend Erin says we all have demons inside us, voices that whisper we're no good, that if we don't make this promotion or ace that exam we'll reveal to the world exactly what kind of worthless sacks of skin and sinew we really are Maybe that's true. Maybe mine just have louder voices.”

“Why do you do that?" "Do what?" "Take something beautiful and vandalize it with skepticism?”

“You will be tempted exactly as Jesus was, because Jesus was being tempted exactly as we are. You will be tempted with consumption, security, and status. You will be tempted to provide for yourself, to protect yourself, and to exalt yourself. And at the core of these three is a common impulse—to cast off the fatherhood of God.”

“Cease being exclusively fascinated by whatever you are aware of and be interested instead in the experience of being aware itself.”