What would our lives be like without tests, odds against us, adventure, risk?
The past hadn't been erased just because a new future had been handed it.
When you only do what is expected of you, you never learn what you would've done had you chosen for yourself.
Sometimes asking God for a reason for something is like asking Him why the sky is blue. There is a complex, scientific reason for it, Claire, but most children, including you, are content with knowing it is blue because it is. If we understood everything about everything, we would have no need for faith.
No one thinks much about their ability to breathe; they just do it. It's when a person can't breathe, that they suddenly realize they'd been doing something truly marvelous all along.
We moved wordlessly from one room to another, from the room of the dead to the room where time lay in pages everywhere I looked.
I don't know very many people who can piece together eloquent prayers when their souls are wounded. Words don't come at those times, but tears do. I have always thought of my tears as prayers.
I think this is every mother's worst nightmare - something dreadful happening to her child.
By all means, fire the customers who aren't worth the time and the trouble. But understand that the moment you insist the customer is wrong, you've just started the firing process.
The blacks have their parties, hustle a little liquor, get some things together, and I used to play for those peoples. They'd come get me on time, but they wouldn't bring me back on time. . . Done picked cotton all day, play all night long, then pick cotton all day the next day before I could get a chance to sleep.
I'm not one of those actors who asks for too many favours. So when I do, people tend to listen.