Jan Karon
One of the things that makes a dead leaf fall to the ground is the bud of the new leaf that pushes it off the limb.Collection: Fall
Cynthia came in quietly and set a cup of tea before him. He kissed her hand, inexpressibly grateful, and she went back into the kitchen. When we view the little things with thanksgiving, even they become big things.Collection: Grateful
Phillipians 4:13 for Pete's sake!Collection: Sake
Are you reading your Bible?" Ah, well...I was." And then you quit." You got it." Then, you can expect to be weak on one of your flanks, and that's precisely where the Enemy will come after you with a vengeance.Collection: Reading
Don't fear whatever God lays before you today.Collection: Today
Love is an endless act of forgiveness.Collection: Forgiveness
There may be circumstances in this life that God uses to keep bringing us back to Him, looking for His grace.Collection: Grace
Loving can be hard. Sometimes we don't feel loving, but it isn't all about feeling. Very often it is about will. Practice that if you can.Collection: Practice
My first novel is loaded with food references largely because my cupboards were bare, and I was writing hungry.Collection: Writing
I have confidence that God is with us in all things, both tender and toughCollection: Tough
Bottom line, wasn’t life itself a special occasion?Collection: Special
So here is what my advice would be: If God has given you a dream, you'd better get cracking because He wants you to use it. That's why He gives them to us in the first place.Collection: Dream
Lord, make me a blessing to someone todayCollection: Prayer
There are so many people who don't know small towns exist. When I write, I want to give my readers two things: one is a sense of consolation, and two, I want to make them laugh.Collection: Writing
There's nothing trite about being consoled in a world that does everything in its power to deliver sorrow.Collection: Sorrow
So many people don't know that God loves them. They feel, 'Why would God love me? Why would He be interested in me?Collection: People
The significant, life-forming times are the dull, in-between times.Collection: Dull
When the trees and the power lines crashed around you, when the very roof gave way above you, when the light turned to darkness and water turned to dust, did you call on Him? When you called on Him, was He somewhere up there, or was He as near as your very breath?Collection: Light
Sometimes you have to gag on fancy before you can appreciate plain.Collection: Appreciate
Well, I think some people are very happy in retirement. And in a year and a half I'm going to see how happy I feel in retirement. I'm just going to not work quite so hard, but I'll continue to write as long as God gives me breath.Collection: Retirement
My life is extremely full and wretchedly busy, and I feel that while my life drains energy from my work, my work in turn drains energy from my life. The result is, I am always playing catch-up spiritually. That is my thorn.Collection: Energy
Writing is a way of processing our lives. And it can be a way of healing.Collection: Healing
Give me faith, Lord, to know Your Presence as surely as I know the beating of my own heart. I've felt so far from You.Collection: Heart
Easter is never deserved.Collection: Easter
In World War One, they called it shell shock. Second time around, they called it battle fatigue. After 'Nam, it was post-traumatic stress disorder.Collection: Veterans Day
When we turn from our sin, and have the blessed forgiveness of the Almighty, then we can ask Him to run things, and let Him be in charge.Collection: Running
The firefly only shines when on the wing, So it is with us--when we stop, we darken.Collection: Firefly
I try to put my heart out there to everybody. They don't have to be Christian. For example, I have lots of Jewish readers. I love my Jewish readers.Collection: Christian
I'd like you to know that I have forgiven him. Again and again. Once done, course, back comes the Enemy to persecute and persecute, and I must ante up to God and forgive yet again.Collection: Forgiving
In Ireland there’s no such thing as bad weather ~~~ only the wrong clothes. (In the Company of Others)Collection: Weather
I made real sacrifices and took big risks. But living, it seems to me, is largely about risk.Collection: Real
Love is an actual need, an urgent requirement of the heart, he read aloud from an old essay on marriage that he found in his files.Every properly constituted human being who entertains an appreciation of loneliness...and looks forward to happiness and content feels the necessity of loving. Without it, life is unfinished.Collection: Appreciation
I live in a village where people still care about each other, largely.Collection: People
Let me say that I absolutely loved writing 'A Common Life,' because it was a book about love.Collection: Book
I really care about my readers. I care about anyone who reads my books.Collection: Book
For a very long time, I wrote a book a year, and was eager and willing to do it, to put bread on the table, to have my work out there. Now I must write a book every two years, and that's never enough time, either.Collection: Book
Sometimes you have to gag on fancy before you can appreciate plain, th' way I see it. For too many years, I ate fancy, I dressed fancy, I talked fancy. A while back, I decided to start talkin' th' way I was raised t' talk, and for th' first time in forty years, I can understand what I'm sayin'.Collection: Years
...weary of k knowing too much and understanding too little.Collection: Knowing
Paul said in the second epistle...the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine...they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn from the truth and wander away to myths.Collection: Teacher
I learned not to be so bitterly defeated when my fiction took a beating from editors. I learned in advertising to color in the lines and have my work done on time and to make it the very best it could be.Collection: Color
And it can be a way of healing.Collection: Healing
My grandmother influenced me so deeply.Collection: Grandmother
I've put everything I had and I've given my readers 120 percent, and that's the truth.Collection: Given
Even the roughest character, underneath all that hurt, is someone who wants to love and be loved.Collection: Hurt
I remember the first time I held my book, my first book in my hands. I cannot tell you how it moved me.Collection: Book
I have raced against the clock since I went into advertising at the age of eighteen.Collection: Age
I grew up hearing words like snakeroot, sassafras, mullein - things that had wondrous, mysterious sounds in their names.Collection: Names
As long as you have any floor space at all, you have room for books! Just make two stacks of books the same height, place them three or four feet apart, lay a board across them, and repeat. Viola! Bookshelves!Collection: Book
I've got a lot to download on your mercy and grace. I've always rushed up to You and dumped whatever it was and hurried away, fascinated by my own busyness. I want to turn all this over to You slowly, carefully, examining every fragment as I pass it off, so there'll never be any question about it again. Every time I've dumped and run, I've nearly always run back and snatched it out of Your hands. Help me in this.......Right now, I'm certain of only one thing - that You love us, and that's where we all have to begin.Collection: Running
I believe that's when God first started speaking to my heart--the very day I started speaking to His!Collection: Believe