Quotes from Donald Miller

I should have people around bugging me and getting under my skin because without people I could not grow - I could not grow in God, and I could not grow as a human.

Right, but you know, what would any of us lose by losing our possessions. Maybe we would gain something, like relationships, like the beauty of good friends, intimacy, you know what I mean, man? Like we wouldn't be losing anything if we lost our stuff, we'd be gaining everything.

Humans are designed to seek comfort and order, and so if they have comfort and order, they tend to plant themselves, even if their comfort is not all that comfortable, even if they see clearly want for something better.

For a moment sitting there above the city, i imagined life outside of narcissism. I wondered how beautiful it might be to think of others as more important than myself. I wondered how peaceful it might be not to be pestered by that childish voice that wants for pleasure and attention. I wondered how it would be like not to live in a house of mirrors, everywhere i go being reminded of myself.

Nothing is going to change in congo until you and i figure out what is wrong with the person inside the mirror

The thing I loved about her was that I never felt like she was selling anything. She would talk to God as if she knew Him, as if she had talked to Him on the phone that day. She was never ashamed which is the thing with some Christians I had encountered.

Life has a peculiar feel when you look back on it that it doesn't have when you're actually living it. It's as though the whole thing were designed to be understood in hindsight, as though you'll never know the meaning of your experiences until you've had enough of them to provide reference.

There is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like truth at all because it carries responsibility.

I heard once that real love doesn't ask what is in it for me; it just gives unconditionally. It just tries to take the weight out of somebody else's pack, lessen his load, and if it gets reciprocated, that's great, but that isn't what you did it for.

In every line of copy we write, we're either serving the customer's story or descending into confusion; we're either making music or making noise.

Perhaps that's another reason true intimacy is so frightening. It's the one thing we all want, and must give up control to get.

The same principles that make up a good story also make up a good life.

I talk about love, forgiveness, social justice; I rage against American materialism in the name of alturism, but have I even controlled my own heart? The overwhelming majority of time I spend thinking about myself, pleasing myself, reassuring myself, and when I am done there is nothing to spare for the needy. Six billion people live in this world, and I can only muster thoughts for one. Me.

I love this about Christian spirituality. It cannot be explained, and yet it is beautiful and true. It is something you feel, and it comes from the soul.

a beggar's kingdom is better than a proud man's delusion.

When we do what God wants us to do, we are blessed, we are spiritually healthy.

What I'm saying is I think life is staggering and we're just used to it. We are all like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we're given - it's just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving in over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral.

I feel guilty because for a long time I didn't allow myself a television, and I used to drop that fact in conversation to impress people. I thought it made me sound dignified. A couple of years ago, however, I visited a church in the suburbs and there was this blowhard preacher talking about how television rots your brain. He said that when we are watching television our minds are working no harder than when we are sleeping. I thought that sounded heavenly. I bought one that afternoon.

I was starting to believe I was a character in a greater story, which is why the elements of story made sense in the first place.

the words alone, lonely, and loneliness are three of the most powerful words in the English language...those words say that we are human; they are like the words hunger and thirst. But they are not words about the body, they are words about the soul.

It's true: if we live behind a mask we can impress but we can't connect.

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.

We were made to be distracted by life, by story.

Naked people look funny when they are for-real naked, outside-a-magazine naked.