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Donald Miller

Donald Miller Quotes

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Famous Donald Miller Quotes

“I can't do it. It would be like, say, trying to fall in love with somebody, or trying to convince yourself that your favorite food is pancakes. You don't decide those things, they just happen to you. If God is real, He needs to happen to me.”

IfsNeedsTryingI CanRealHappensWould BeFallFalling In LoveConvinceYour FavoritePancakesFavorite FoodsGod Is Real
Book:Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God
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“I believe the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man's mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God. I was into habit.”

IfsMenTryingMindBelieveHeartHardChristianEvilI BelieveReligiousHabitDevilTricksWasting TimeEngaging
Book:Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
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“I do not believe a person can take two issues from Scripture, those being abortion and gay marriage, and adhere to them as sins, then neglect much of the rest and call himself a fundamentalist or even a conservative. The person who believes the sum of his morality involves gay marriage and abortion alone, and neglects health care and world trade and the environment and loving his neighbor and feeding the poor is, by definition, a theological liberal, because he takes what he wants from Scripture and ignores the rest.”

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Author:Donald Miller
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“When you live on your own for a long time, however, your personality changes because you go so much into yourself you lose the ability to be social, to understand what is and isn't normal behavior. There is an entire world inside yourself, and if you let yourself, you can get so deep inside it you will forget the way to the surface. Other people keep our souls alive, just like food and water does with our body.”

PeopleIfsWorldWayLongDoeSoulBodySocialWaterLosesAbilityForgetAlivePersonalityBehaviorNormalLong TimeSurfaceDeep Inside
Book:Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God
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“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.”

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Author:Donald Miller
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“I think this is when most people give up on their stories. They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to have kids and change the way people buy office supplies. But they get into the middle and discover it was harder than they thought. They can't see the distant shore anymore, and they wonder if their paddling is moving them forward. None of the trees behind them are getting smaller and none of the trees ahead are getting bigger. They take it out on their spouses, and they go looking for an easier story.”

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Author:Donald Miller
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“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.”

PeopleLoveLifePerfectRelationshipHusbandExpectationsPerfectionRelationHappy LifeExpectingBoyfriendNot PerfectLove RelationshipMaterial PossessionsHigh ExpectationsI'm Not PerfectInspiring FriendsLove And RelationshipInspirational RelationshipRelationships And LifeBest RelationshipPerfect RelationshipExpecting Nothing In ReturnI Am Not PerfectExpecting ThingsAmazing Relationship
Author:Donald Miller
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“I fell in love with books. Some people find beauty in music, some in painting, some in landscape, but I find it in words. By beauty, I mean the feeling you have suddenly glimpsed another world, or looked into a portal that reveals a kind of magic or romance out of which the world has been constructed, a feeling there is something more than the mundane, and a reason for our plodding.”

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Book:Father Fiction: Chapters for a Fatherless Generation
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“*I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago... *So soon you will be in that part of the book where you are holding the bulk of the pages in your left hand, and only a thin wisp of the story in your right. *We get one story, you and I, and one story alone....It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.”

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Author:Donald Miller
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“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.”

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Author:Donald Miller
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“I don't wonder anymore what I'll tell God when I go to heaven when we sit in the chairs under the tree, outside the city........I'll tell these things to God, and he'll laugh, I think and he'll remind me of the parts I forgot, the parts that were his favorite. We'll sit and remember my story together, and then he'll stand and put his arms around me and say, "well done," and that he liked my story. And my soul won't be thirsty anymore. Finally he'll turn and we'll walk toward the city, a city he will have spoken into existence a city built in a place where once there'd been nothing.”

ThinkingWellsSoulDoneStoriesTogetherRememberTurnsHeavenWalksCitiesExistenceWonderLaughingTreeArmsBuiltMy SoulChairsThirstyWell Done
Author:Donald Miller
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“My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect. I don’t really do that anymore. Sooner or later you just figure out there are some guys who don’t believe in God and they can prove He doesn't exist, and there are some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it’s about who is smarter, and honestly I don’t care.”

BelieveLongDoeCareGuyStruggleFiguresProveLong TimeArgumentDon't BelieveDon't CareIntellectHonestlyI Don't CareBelieve In GodSooner Or LaterSmarterLong Time AgoOther Guys
Book:Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
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“Christ, in short, asks us to give everything, all our false redemption in the lifeboat, all our false ideas about who God is, all our trust in something other than God to redeem us. In so doing, we die to our broken natures in exchange for His perfect nature, and find unification with Him that will allow God to see us as one.”

GivingIdeasDiesAsksChristPerfectBrokenRedemptionUnificationLifeboatsWho God Is
Book:Searching for God Knows What
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“I think Jesus is saying, Look, you guys are running around like monkeys trying to get people to clap, but people are fallen, they are separated from God, so they have no idea what is good or bad, worthy to be judged or set free, beautiful or ugly to begin with. Why not get your glory from God? Why not accept your feelings of redemption because of His pleasure in you, not the fickle and empty favor of man? And only then will you know who you are, and only then will you have true, uninhibited relationships with others.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsMenTryingLooksIdeasFeelingsRunningBeautifulGuyJesusPleasureAcceptingGloryEmptyWho You AreUglyWorthyFavorsRedemptionNo IdeaFallenWhy NotJudgedMonkeysFickleRelationships With Others
Author:Donald Miller
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“What we really need is somebody who loves us so much we don’t worry about death, or about [anything for that matter]… We need this; we need this so we can love other people purely and not for selfish gain, we need this so we can see everybody as equals, we need this so our relationships can be sincere, we need this so we can stop kicking ourselves around, we need this so we can lose all self-awareness and find ourselves for the first time, not by realizing some dream, but by being told who we are by the only Being who has the authority to know, by that I mean the Creator.”

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Author:Donald Miller
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“Earthly love… is temporal and slight so that is has to be given again and again in order for us to feel any sense of security; but God’s love, God’s voice and presence, would instill our souls with such affirmation we would need nothing more and would cause us to love other people so much we would be willing to die for them.”

PeopleNeedsFeelsSoulWould BeOrderDiesGivenCausesVoiceLove IsSecurityWillingGod LoveAgain And AgainAffirmationGod's LoveInstillWilling To Die
Author:Donald Miller
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“It comforts me to think that if we are created beings, the thing that created us would have to be greater than us, so much greater, in fact, that we would not be able to understand it. It would have to be greater than the facts of our reality, and so it would seem to us, looking out from within our reality that it would contradict reason. But reason itself would suggest it would have to be greater than reality, or it would not be reasonable.”

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Author:Donald Miller
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“Everybody wants to be fancy and new. Nobody wants to be themselves. I mean, maybe people want to be themselves, but they want to be different, with different clothes or shorter hair or less fat. It's a fact. If there was a guy who just liked being himself and didn't want to be anybody else, that guy would be the most different guy in the world and everybody would want to be him.”

PeopleIfsWorldWantMeanDifferentFactsWould BeGuyHairClothesFatsFancyThat GuyDifferent Guys
Book:Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
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“As a human, I am flawed in that it is difficult for me to consider others before myself. It feels like I have to fight against this force, this current within me that, more often than not, wants to avoid serious issues and please myself, buy things for myself, feed myself, entertain myself, and all of that.”

WantFeelsHumansFightingForceDifficultIssuesSeriousPleaseCurrentsFlawedSerious Issues
Book:Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
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“They are lonely. I'm not talking about lonely for a lover or a friend. I mean lonely in the universal sense, lonely inside the understanding that we are tiny people on a tiny little earth suspended in an endless void that echoes past stars and stars of stars.”

PeopleMeanLittlesEarthPastStarsUnderstandingTalkingLoversLonelyUniversalTinyEndlessVoidEchoesNot TalkingSuspended
Book:Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God
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“I am human because God made me. I experience suffering and temptation because mankind chose to follow Satan. God is reaching out to me to rescue me. I am learning to trust Him, learning to live by His precepts that I might be preserved.”

HumansMadeMightSufferingMankindTemptationSatanReachingLive ByReach OutRescueRescue MeLearning To Trust
Book:Blue Like Jazz: Movie Edition: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
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“The thing about new things is you feel new when you buy them, you feel as though you are somebody different because you own something different. We are our possessions, you know. There are people who get addicted to buying new stuff. Things. Piles and piles of things. But the new things become old things so quickly. We need new things to replace the old things.”

PeopleKnowsNeedsFeelsDifferentStuffPossessionBuyingNew ThingsOld ThingsNew Stuff
Book:Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God
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“I've wondered, though, if one of the reasons we fail to acknowledge the brilliance of life is because we don't want the responsibility inherent in the acknowledgment. We don't want to be characters in a story because characters have to move and breathe and face conflict with courage. And if life isn't remarkable, then we don't have to do any of that; we can be unwilling victims instead of grateful participants.”

IfsWantReasonCharacterStoriesFacesMovingLife IsResponsibilityFailingConflictVictimGratefulBreatheAcknowledgeRemarkableInherentThousand YearsBrillianceUnwillingParticipantsAcknowledgment
Book:A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
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