“We are all dust passing through the air, the difference is, some are flying high in the sky, while others are flying low. But eventually, we all settle on the same ground.”

“The question of how to spend my life, of what my life is for, is a question posed only to me, and I can no more delegate the responsibility for answering it than I can delegate the task of dying.”

“Strong is the man who can pull apart his own pride and hopelessness; courageous is the man who then reaches in, near his most vital inner workings to pull out the slivers and shards of mortality that have worked their way in.It’s not about determining the shade of grey the white paint in the bucket has become, but finding where the black paint is dripping from, and stopping it.”

“Looking back, I now realize that I left home in search of all the things that were right in the very place I left.”

“Without solitude, we are overwhelmed by all the things we hope to do and all of the things we hope to do and all of the things we are planning and praying to do but we never really have the time to actually get down and get these things done.”

“What God has planned for us is far better than what we desire to behold.”

“Because it’s worth dreaming and expecting the best from you and others, because once you fulfill your dreams you can make other people happy as well.”

“Stop sitting on the sidelines of everyone else’s life and become and active participant in your own life.”

“For some reason Eldorado now seemed analogous to something – something better, a change for the good, a little place of hope. Maybe nothing would be different. Maybe Eldorado would be just one more kind of disappointment, but it was a purpose and it was a goal and it was a destination. It was a reason to keep moving.”

“Start your journey with purpose and vision, then pursue it with great passion.”

“I’m a writer and this is what I do no matter what name we put to it. Year by year, the world is turning into a darker and stranger place than any of us could want. This is the only thing I do that has potential to shine a little further than my immediate surroundings. For me, each story is a little candle held up to the dark of night, trying to illuminate the hope for a better world where we all respect and care for each other.”

“The power of hope! Even a lack of ambition can, for a time, pay off as a necessary facet, as long as hope outweighs it.”

“Belief in immortality is harmful because it is not in our power to conceive of the soul as really incorporeal. So this belief is in fact a belief in the prolongation of life, and it robs death of its purpose.”

“Why wait? So precious is this life—this gift—this temporary blindness. Burn and drown and embrace the false dark, then grasp the unthinkable height of resulting joy. For in the end, in the light of truth when the flesh is cast off, there is nothing but this.”