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41 " When you build a city near no mountains and no ocean, you get materialism and traditional religion. People have too much time and lack inspiration. "
― Donald Miller , Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road
42 " The root systems of these lies we tell ourselves tend to grow together. It’s all connected with the belief human love is conditional. But human love isn’t conditional. No love is conditional. If love is conditional, it’s just some sort of manipulation masquerading as love. "
― Donald Miller , Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy
43 " The reward you get from a story is always less than you thought it would be, and the work is harder than you imagined. The point of a story is never about the ending, remember. It's about your character getting molded in the hard work of the middle. At some point the shore behind you stops getting smaller, and you paddle and wonder why the same strokes that used to move you now only rock the boat. You got the wife, but you don't know if you like her anymore and you've only been married for five years. You want to wake up and walk into the living room in your underwear and watch football and let your daughters play with the dog because the far shore doesn't get closer no matter how hard you paddle.The shore you left is just as distant, and there is no going back; there is only the decision to paddle in place or stop, slide out of the hatch, and sink into the sea. Maybe there's another story at the bottom of the sea. Maybe you don't have to be in this story anymore. "
― Donald Miller , A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
44 " Sometimes when I watch my dog, I think about how good life can be, if we only lose ourselves in our stories. Lucy doesn't read self-help books about how to be a dog; she just IS a dog. All she wants to do is chase ducks and sticks and do other things that make both her and me happy. It makes me wonder if that was the intention for man, to chase sticks and ducks, to name animals, to create families, and to keep looking back at God to feed off his pleasure at our pleasure. "
45 " God allows us to face the tension whether we like it or not. "
46 " It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things. "
― Donald Miller
47 " Perhaps one of the reasons I've avoided standing on the point toward the horizon is the second you stand up and point toward a horizon, you realize how much there is to lose. "
48 " Life isn't memorable enough to remember everything. It's not like there are explosions all the time, or dog smoking cigarettes. "
49 " When you live countless stories in which you play a sedentary role, it's an odd feeling to switch stories. "
50 " What good does it do to tell somebody to live morally so they can die 50 years later and apparently go to Hell? "
― Donald Miller , Searching for God Knows What
51 " He thought about the story his daughter was living and the role she was playing inside that story. He realized he hadn't provided a better role for his daughter. He hadn't mapped out a story for his family. And so his daughter had chosen another story, a story in which she was wanted, even if she was only being used. In the absence of a family story, she'd chosen a story in which there was risk and adventure, rebellion and independence. "
52 " I never thought to ascribe my mother's emotional and physical exhaustion to the lack of a husband and father; rather, I ascribed it to my existence. In other words, I grew up learning the exact opposite of what Eisenhower was taught. I learned that if I didn't exist, the family would be better off. I grew up believing that if I had never been born, things would be easier for the people I loved. (page 35) "
― Donald Miller , To Own a Dragon: Reflections on Growing Up Without a Father
53 " Dwight Eisenhower said that from the beginning, his mother and father operated on an assumption that set the course of his life - that the world could be fixed of its problems if every child understood the necessity of their existence. Eisenhower's parents assumed, and taught their children, that if their children weren't alive, their family couldn't function. (page 34) "
54 " (The monks) approach was far less narcissistic and our tends to be. Their goal when reading Scripture was to see Christ in every verse, and not a mirror image of themselves. "
55 " Because it is so scatterbrained and has absolutely no charts and graphs, I'm actually quite surprised the Bible sells. "
56 " You'd think God would come right out and tell us what to do in the Bible, but He doesn't. He mostly tells stories, and He rarely stops the story to say what the point is. He just lets the characters and conflict hang in the air like smoke. "
57 " The mountains themselves call us into greater stories. "
58 " I listened so hard because it felt like, while she was telling me stories, she was massaging my soul, letting me know that I was not alone, that I will never have to be alone, that there are friends and family and churches and coffee shops. I was not going to be cast into space. "
― Donald Miller , Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
59 " When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you like them for who they are. And when you stop expecting material possessions to complete you, you'd be surprised how much pleasure you get from material possessions. And when you stop expecting God to end all your troubles, you'd be surprised how much you like spending time with God. "
60 " You don't realize your story is changing you until you look back. "