Ben > Ben's Quotes

“So sure am I that many things which illness has led me to see are true, that I would endlessly rather never be well than lose sight of them.”
― George MacDonald, Paul Faber, Surgeon

“Jesus Christ is able to untangle all the snarls in your soul, to banish all your complexes, and to transform even your fixed habit patterns, no matter how deeply they are etched in your subconscious.”
― Corrie ten Boom, Amazing Love: True Stories of the Power of Forgiveness

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another...the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, "Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Never bet your money on another man's game.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“If God could do things like that, the world wouldn’t look the way it does. He can’t reach down and change things. He can’t stop any of us doing what we choose to do.'

“What use is he then?”

Oenone shrugged. 'He sees. He understands. He knows how you’re feeling. He knows how Theo felt. He knows how it feels to die. And when we die, we go to him.'

'To the Sunless Country, you mean? Like ghosts?”'

Oenone shook her head patiently. 'Like children. Do you remember what it was like to be a tiny child? When everything was possible and everything was given to you, and you knew that you were safe and loved, and the days went on forever? When we die, it will be like that again. That’s how it is for Theo now, in heaven.”
― Philip Reeve, A Darkling Plain

“Dear God, thank you for warm summer nights and candlelight and good food. But thank you most of all for friends. We appreciate the complicated and wonderful gifts you give us in each other. And we appreciate the task you put down before us, of loving each other the best we can, even as you love us. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.”
― Kate DiCamillo, Because of Winn-Dixie

“Man is one of your creatures, Lord, and his instinct is to praise you…. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.”
― Augustine of Hippo