Mcneal Quotes

For you, I was a chapter. For me, you were the book.

Sometimes I think the cover of a book as a door to another world...but other times I think of it as an escape hatch from this one. I guess it's the same thing.

He says that all that happens when you go far, far away is that you discover you've brought yourself along.

Adolescence is a skin we never quite shed.

Distance means so little, when someone means so much.

One does not know love until it arrives, and it's arrival will always surprise.

She was surprised at how deflating his presence was.

Well, it is true. Sometimes avoiding something can give it more and more meaning rather than less and less.

I'm saying she looks fine on the outside, but inside is somebody who's going to need a man a lot more than he's going to need her.

You got to dance, even when there ain't no music.

Amiel was looking at me with the kind of interest that made my mouth dry up. I was Braille and his eyes were fingers.

It was as Ginger's grandfather had said. It did not matter how far you go, you always take yourself with you.

He turned toward my voice. "Am I well?" His mocking tone was unmistakable. "Am I well? Why can't you just talk like everyone else? Why can't you just say, 'How you doin'? You doin' good?'" Very well, then, I said. I look forward to the day when every schoolchild will read Shakespeare's great comedic play All's Good That Ends Good.

New Orleans was like that. A live-and-let-live attitude was ingrained into the fabric of the city; no one cared who you were or what you looked like - you had a place, and everyone respected that.

Tu' eres de dos mundos." He was wrong, of course. You can only belong to one world at a time.

Leaders in touch with heaven can move earth

You got to dance even when there ain't no music." Queenie paused. "Especially when there ain't no music.

Those called penny bags. Each of them got a brand-new penny on the bottom. The light reflecting off the penny supposed to confuse the flies, so they don’t come around and bother the food, although every time I see a fly, they confused enough already. Know what I mean?” Queenie chuckled.

A man who would give advice without understanding is a fool.

Even as Camille's beauty and precocity took form, when pride alone might have nurtured proprietary feelings, she never seemed quite the child Judith was meant to call her own.

The studies, Jeremy, I said. The studies, the studies, the studies.

You know, for a while there we kept horses for the boys, and we had a mare that had broken down. Couldn't ride it... You could feed it and brush it and water it and all. Sometimes, I've thought that's what most marriages get to. A horse you still care a little about but cannot any longer ride.

Inside the house, near the hearth, Amiel had built a sort of fire pit with rocks. It was a safer place to cook than most campsites, really, because there was concrete all around, and I longed to be there when he had the fire going, when we could be cowgirl and cowboy and pretend we weren't a few miles from two million people.

And then, before I could shout in alarm, the tear spilled free—and there was nothing for me to do but rush past and, with the smallest draft, ever so slightly alter its flight. The tear landed, safely, on her cheek. Her eyes snapped open in surprise.

FACT 228: In Japan, suicide resulting from overwork, or karojisatsu, is an officially recognized and compensated occupational hazard. By some estimates, 5 percent of all suicides in Japan are "company related." "Where's Hiro? He's supposed to lead this meeting." "He killed himself, sir." "Ah, dedication. I like it. Give him a raise.

Learn when to talk and when to listen. If you're unsure, listen.

I’ve come to realize that you must be willing to live the life that is waiting for you. That life may not be the one you planned. You have to learn to let go.

I will always care for you, even if we're not together and even if we're far, far away.

You can't let buffoons rule your life.

In the old tales, kindness is the purest form of heroism. Find the character who meets the world with a big heart and an open hand and you have found your hero or heroine.

It is the first shower that wets." "Marriage is like picking the place where you're going to live for the next fifty years by using a wall map, a blind fold, and what you really, truly, deeply believe is your lucky dart." "Our marriage, like all marriages, was happy until it wasn't

Greenie Coombs became my best friend the last summer of making things up. We were in fourth grade, way too old for playing with Barbies, which is why we were so close: we had to protect our secret.

This time when we kissed, he didn't pull away, and I was close enough to his mouth for him to whisper what the tiny old vaquero had said a long time ago, the part of being of two worlds. "Tu eres de dos mundos." I closed both of my eyes, the blue one and the brown one, so I could be in just one world, his...

On September 13, we were the kindling, and a monstrous god leaned over us to breathe. Clouds melted, brush trembled, and the ocean burned white like molten glass...I was hoping, like everyone else who lay awake listening to the wind, that no pyromaniacs were out there, trembling in thrall beneath the god monster, reaching for a match.

But that is the way of the world, is it not? Every day a child steps away from the parent by the littlest distance, perhaps just the width of a mouse-whisker, but every day it happens and the days go by, one after another after another

Here’s the thing, Judy. Here’s the thing we have to look at and accept. For you, I was a chapter—a good chapter, maybe, or even your favorite chapter, but still, just a chapter—and for me, you were the book.” “No, no, Willy, what you’re saying about me—that’s just not true,” she said, but she didn’t say what she thought was the truer, darker truth: that, to use his metaphor, he had been most of the book, but she had been too careless or self-absorbed or oblivious to know it, and it was too late to change the ending.

When my nephew passed beyond, Wilhelm comforted himself that a child in his innocence would be delivered speedily to heaven, and there be given an honored place. “In this small, simple throne,” Wilhelm said, and I said, “With secret compartments for his bird’s nests and smooth stones.” Wilhelm believed this. He had to believe this. I, too, repeated this conception to myself again and again, trying harder to harder to believe it. But a Creator who takes a child so small, so kind, so tender? What can be made of that? The tales we collected are not merciful. Villains are boiled in snake-filled oil, wicked Steifmutter-stepmothers-are made to dance into death in molten-hot shoes, and on and on. The tales are full of terrible punishments, yes, but they follow just cause. Goodness is rewarded; evil is not. The generous simpleton finds more happiness and coin than the greedy king. So why not mercy and justice to sweet youth from an omnipotent and benevolent Creator? There are only three answers. He is not omnipotent, or he is not benevolent, or-the dreariest possibility of all-he is inattentive. What if that was what happened to my nephew? That God’s gaze had merely strayed elsewhere?

It's like picking the place you're going to live for the next fifty years by using a wall map, a blindfold, and what you really, truly, deeply believe is your lucky dart.' Sullenly Judith said, `I don't believe I have a lucky dart,' and her mother cast an unhappy smile her way and said, `You will, though.

As James U. McNeal, a professor of marketing at Texas A&M University, puts it, “75 percent of spontaneous food purchases can be traced to a nagging child. And one out of two mothers will buy a food simply because her child requests it. To trigger desire in a child is to trigger desire in the whole family.

FACT 413: Smoking contributes to heart disease, the number one cause of death in the United States. Cigarette smokers quadruple their risk for developing coronary heart disease. I think it would be fun to put on a Grim Reaper costume and go stand in the corner of the smoking room at the airport. Just stand there. With my sickle.

I am sure one of those things we are here for is to make certain that those whom we love fall asleep each night assured of that love.

It matters not whether you're led by chains or kind words, by need or greed, by conviction or fear, by truth or deceit. Intent is unimportant. Results endure.

No one took a smiling jailer seriously. A smiling executioner was worse.

When we look after the welfare of others, we promote and participate in God’s kingdom work.

He whispered in his damaged voice: Tú eres de dos mundos. He was wrong, of course. You can only belong to one world at a time.

it only looks like crap, its actually quite flavorless

...the kind of love that picks you up in Akron and sets you down in Rio...

Wanting to play God for your own private purposes, whatever they are, might be what getting greedy is

In the Middle Ages, bloodletting was often performed by barbers, which is why the traditional barber’s pole—like the bloody towels that once hung outside barber shops—is colored red and white.

FACT 211: The chronic stress of a high-pressure job has been shown to double the risk of a heart attack. Chronic stress may also result in alcoholism, hypertension, and severe depression, and can make your joints ache, your hair fall out, and even stop your period. So that bald drunk lady at work who's always crying and giving away her tampons? Give her a break; she's under a lot of stress.

FACT 450: Ecstasy is often used in conjunction with other drugs such as marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine, ketamine, and other drugs, making it even more dangerous. Drugs: they're not a salad bar.

Well, it’s all a kind of puzzle, isn’t it? You start out with your own little set of pieces you’re trying to fit together, then you get married and it’s a lot more pieces, way more than double in my opinion, and next thing you have kids and all of a sudden there are too many pieces for the table, and more showing up every day.” He gave a small dry laugh. “I suppose the Buddhists and them would say you just got to appreciate the ever-changing thinginess of the puzzle.

I had reached the end if the trail and the dead end of Willow Glen Road, which meant I had a long way to go, most of it uphill. I heard a bicycle, and because sometimes the world gives you what you want, the bicycle that streaked into view held Amiel.

If we were honest about it, our lives are all fiascoes. There really isn’t anything of importance except maybe who gets handed your heart and what they do with it. And just so you don’t spend a lot of time fretting over it, even that may be pretty meager.” A few seconds passed. “We’re just small, Judy. All of us, even though we do stuff every day of the week to distract ourselves from the fact, it’s still true. We’re just little and small and maybe if we have some backbone we do a few things worth doing and then we’re gone.

By the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail. They will bear every month because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.” Ezekiel 47:12

I had no idea whether they played hide-and-seek in Mexico. Still, it was a game that let me be confident instead of self-conscious and confused, so I reached out my hand to touch the nearest part of him, which was his knee. "Tag," I said. "You're it." If he had run, I could have chased him and known what I was doing, because I know how to be eight, nine, ten, and eleven...

Kids in my history class pulled out their cell phones and turned them on. I did the same, and as we all lifted our heavy backpacks, the doors of every classroom clanked open and out flowed the river of students with phones clapped to their ears. Soon the quad was a sea of backpacks and people staring nervously into space as they had conversations with people who weren't there.

My whole life reminded me of how it felt to ride, when Greenie and I were little, in the back of Greenie's mother's car, an ancient Pacer with a seat that faced backward and left us staring at places we'd already been and drivers who didn't want to make eye contact. I was facing the wrong direction, but time still went forward, gliding toward destinations I couldn't see or choose.

We sincerely believe discipleship has become a frontier issue for the people of God at this time in history. And most commentators would agree that in sincerely seeking to appeal to the prevailing consumerist culture, the Western church has all but lost the art of discipleship.2 This causes, for instance, Southern Baptist prophet Reggie McNeal to conclude that “church culture in North America is a vestige of the original [Christian] movement, an institutional expression of religion that is in part a civil religion and in part a club where religious people can hang out with other people whose politics, worldview, and lifestyle match theirs.”3 If this is indeed the case, we should be clear this is not what the church is called to be, and is, in fact, a failure in discipleship.

We will see more and more people, in the church and out, who have the call, the ability, and the finances to resource their own ministry passions in the community. They will not wait for the church to catch up. One clear generational distinction of the millennials (born 1983-2000) is a renewed civic consciousness. As this generational cohort matures, the Christians in it will be much more likely to volunteer and write checks for ministries' and missions' actions that make a difference in people's lives where they live.

The new and needed apologetics will differ from previous apologetic models geared at convincing people solely or even mainly from a rationalistic perspective or that begin with biblical authority. People want to see spiritual power demonstrated by transformed lives expressed in community. This is the hope people harbor. They will respond to a spiritual belief system that delivers at this point. Jesus said that the proof f discipleship to the world would be his followers’ love for one another (John 13:35). Early observers were drawn to the Christian movement exactly for this reason (Acts 2: 44-47). Love expressed through community still transforms people and creates an attractive and compelling invitation for others to join up.

When you pee, a small amount of urine enters your mouth through the saliva glands.

We are all afforded some self-loathing from time to time. It is when you wallow in your self-pity and forget to live your life that it becomes a problem,

We ain’t what we want to be. We ain’t what we gonna be. But thank God we ain’t what we was,

Feeling unwanted doesn’t have a timeline attached to it.

Some things too broke to fix sometimes. All you can do is make the best of it.

You can’t tame the river. But it can tame you.

One pound of peanut butter can contain up to 150 bug fragments and 5 rodent hairs.

Examine, if you will, the vibrating space around you, what is between and around your hands and your hearths and your homes. This is where I, or another like me, might be: in the Zwischenraum—the space between.

Do you think the reason he’s so glad to see us when we come in is that his life is as dull as ditchwater?” “Are you kidding?” Maddy Saxon said in her low voice. “There are tons of boring people in this town, and none of them are happy to see us.

My grandfather says there’s no point in traveling. He says all that happens when you go far, far away is that you discover you’ve brought yourself along.” Well, there is truth in that. Look how far I have traveled, and yet here I am.

But before he could go, Jeremy pointed to the third door, the one that the baker had not opened, and said, “What’s in there?” “Oh,” the baker said, his eyes falling on the door. “Nothing, nothing. Please do not open it.” Again the baker made to leave, and again Jeremy stopped his progress. “Mr. Blix?” “Yes?” “You can’t do that.” The baker seemed confused. “Can’t do what?” “You can’t leave and tell us not to open the door, because that happens all the time in fairy tales and movies, and everyone knows that sooner or later whoever isn’t supposed to open the door is going to open the door, and …” “Yes?” the baker said. “And that’s when things start happening.” A laugh rumbled up from the baker’s belly. Then he walked over to the third door and lifted the latch. He pushed the door gently open and stepped aside so that Jeremy and Ginger could peer in. Well! This room was just like the other two, except that the gleaming shelves were already stacked with sacks of flour and sugar, baking soda and salt. “Frank Bailey and I cleaned this one last week and loaded the shelves, which”—he winked—“you will know something about before your workday is over.” He smiled at Jeremy. “I didn’t mean to be mysterious. I just didn’t want anything disturbed or any dust to get in. You understand?” “Sure,” Jeremy said. “Sorry.” The baker seemed unperturbed. “Not at all,” he said, pulling the door closed again. “Perhaps it’s been too long since I read a story or went to a movie.

A good-bye two hours before dawn or two hours after—it’s all a good-bye.

But this boy, this little man, he would try to smile even as his eyes bulged from his face. He never complained. In his sleep, he would sometimes cry out for his mother or father or for his uncle Jacob, but he never complained.

After a long silence, Jeremy said in a quiet voice, “What did you do when your nephew died?” I died a kind of death. My heart shrank and blackened and I died. Though I did not quite know it at the time. But of course I could not tell Jeremy this. I went on, I said. My life had changed and I had changed, but I went on.

But a Creator who takes a child so small, so kind, so tender? What can be made of that? The tales we collected are not merciful. Villains are boiled in snake-filled oil, wicked Stiefmütter—stepmothers—are made to dance into death in molten-hot shoes, and on and on. The tales are full of terrible punishments, yes, but they follow just cause. Goodness is rewarded; evil is not. The generous simpleton finds more happiness and coin than the greedy king. So why not mercy and justice to a sweet youth from an omnipotent and benevolent Creator? There are only three answers. He is not omnipotent, or he is not benevolent, or—the dreariest possibility of all—he is inattentive. What if that was what happened to my nephew? That God’s gaze had merely strayed elsewhere?

They were quiet for a while, and it had to be admitted that these two youths at ease with themselves and each other made a pleasant picture, and I suddenly understood that, for Jeremy, the surprise of love would not arrive, as it does in the tales, with a strange enchantment or with a single smiting glance or with a lilting voice riding the wind through the woodland. No, for Jeremy, the surprise of love would be carried on the lazy currents of friendship.

Fine girl. Smart as a whip. Conk’s nuts about her, but I don’t encourage it. He’d bore that girl in a year, if not sooner.” He shrugged. “Probably anybody would.

Sten Blix.

Trust no one. Friends are enemies in waiting. Love is death.

He need time

Graff was born lucky. He was an American. A sacred birthright.

We know the old world is collapsing, but the contours of the new world are not yet entirely clear. Some of the call functions of the old models will survive. Many will not, at least not in their present form.

FACT: One pound of peanut butter can contain up to 150 bug fragments and 5 rodent hairs. Up to 150. That means there could only be 120–130. Whew! I was almost disgusted there for a second.

Tears blurred my vision and I had to wipe my eyes with my left hand, while holding the hose with my right. For all my efforts, the fire curled tight and fierce up into the darkened sky. And still, the barking continued like a hammer striking raw metal at my back. As I pulled the hose one more time to stretch it to the limit, I sensed movement off to my left. Fletcher Enloe, my neighbor and tireless commentator that city folks, like me, don’t belong in the mountains, emerged from the pine thicket separating our houses. A canvas, pork-pie fishing hat squeezed low over his thick gray hair, and his wiry body listed from the weight of a dark roll slung over his shoulder.

farmer, living with his wife, Reba, and one child, on land he owned. I

She had curled every strand of her hair with rags, attempting something along the lines of Myrna Loy as the Countess Valentine, but what she saw in the mirror was more like Countess Valentine’s crazy old uncle. “You

Sometimes it's not the intent, but the result, that matters.

I am a disciple of Jesus. I am serving him by serving you, because that’s what he came to do.

I had no idea goats have only between six and eight teeth, depending on the age, all located on the lower jaw,

the April day when the Americans mounted the stone steps and pushed the door buzzer, rain had fallen for eleven of the last eleven days, and Aldine McKenna was waiting,

What a delight to have such a handsome couple before me, Miss Swan, Mr. McNeal. You must both

So get off your donkey and help somebody. They need it—and you’ve got a lot of living to do!

I take square aim at an unbiblical churchianity that has resulted in a church-centric religion that fails to reflect the heart of God for people.

Among the gifts of serving others, then, is that we ourselves find our place of belonging.

You were created on purpose for a purpose.

You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9,

Kingsley Lake, or “Silver Dollar Lake,” is almost a perfect circle, spanning nearly two thousand acres with a surprising depth of ninety feet. The reason for the popular lake’s unique shape and depth? It is one of Florida’s many sinkholes.

Indonesia is home to the cobra burger, which isn’t just a catchy name: it’s made with real cobra meat.

Friedrich Bischinger, has gained notoriety by recommending that kids eat their boogers to help strengthen their immune systems.