Go on, then, and let your intent be seriousness.

This is the most joyful day that ever I saw in my pilgrimage on earth.

And now, this is the sweetest and most glorious day that ever my eyes did see.

I wish there were more true conversion, and then there would not be so much backsliding, and, for fear of suffering, living at ease, when there are so few to contend for Christ and His cause.

Farewell all relations and friends in Christ; farewell acquaintances and all earthly enjoyments; farewell reading and preaching, praying and believing, wanderings, reproaches, and sufferings.

I have been a man of great sins, but He has been a God of great mercies; and now, through His mercies, I have a conscience as sound and quiet as if I had never sinned.

Farewell, dearest friend, never to see one another any more till at the right hand of Christ.

But go on, valiant champion; you die not as a fool, though the apostate, unfaithful, and lukewarm ministers and professors of this generation think and say so.

It is near thirty years since He made it sure; and since that time, though there has fallen out much sin, yet I was never out of an assurance of mine interest, nor long out of sight of His presence.

Fear not; and the God of mercies grant a full gale and a fair entry into His kingdom, which may carry sweetly and swiftly over the bar, that you find not the rub of death.

And for yourself, whatever there has been either of sin or duty, remember the one and forget the other, and betake yourself wholly to the mercy of God and the merit of Christ.

Bad habits are demons that often push us into isolation because they know that in our loneliness they stand little chance of being overcome.

Fear can banish faith, but faith can banish fear.

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?

You'll find boredom where there is the absence of a good idea.

Maybe a president who didn't believe our soldiers were going to heaven might be a little less willing to get them killed.

No matter what path you choose, really walk it.

Are we all bubbles blown by a baby?

The best way to end poverty is to simply give people work, which isn't considered 'sexy' among donors who want to fund a preschool or cure a disease.

Marriage is a school of learning.

Jayne Anne Phillips . . . is at the height of her powers in Lark and Termite. . . . This is a major novel from one of America's finest writers.