Some people avoid thinking deeply in public, only because they are afraid of coming across as suicidal.

The kind of lies that someone tells us gives us an idea of how stupid, knowledgeable, intelligent, or ignorant they are … or they think we are.

Often when we are on the path to success we come across obstacles that seem to be like mountains

Dr. Richard Selzer is a surgeon and a favorite author of mine. He writes the most beautiful and compassionate descriptions of his patients and the human dramas they confront. In his book Letters to a Young Doctor, he said that most young people seem to be protected for a time by an imaginary membrane that shields them from horror. They walk in it every day but are hardly aware of its presence. As the immune system protects the human body from the unseen threat of harmful bacteria, so this mythical membrane guards them from life-threatening situations. Not every young person has this protection, of course, because children do die of cancer, congenital heart problems, and other disorders. But most of them are shielded—and don’t realize it. Then, as years roll by, one day it happens. Without warning, the membrane tears, and horror seeps into a person’s life or into the life of a loved one. It is at this moment that an unexpected theological crisis presents itself.

Since we live in a world of appearances, people are judged by what they seem to be. If the mind can't read the predictable features, it reacts with alarm or aversion. Faces which don’t fit in the picture are socially banned. An ugly countenance, a hideous outlook can be considered as a crime and criminals must be inexorably discarded from society. ( "Ugly mug offense" )

Many use the word “Kingdom” flippantly. Even though we sing about it in our praise songs, we talk about it in our sermons, yet we seem to still not understand its reality in our daily lives

Sometimes we are that fly in the house, that thinks it sees an open window. So it crawls to, or flies head-on into clear glass. At times getting stuck between the storm and pane, it dies in the windowsill under a tormenting, hot sun.

People seem to be doing different things, but in reality they do the same thing: They just rush about without having any outstanding universal goal!

Police officers seem nice until they start targeting you for stops, give you a bogus speeding ticket and write fake police reports about their interactions with you

Peter Van Houten was the only person I’d ever come across who seemed to (a) understand what it’slike to be dying, and (b) not have died.

But above all, in order to be, never try to seem.