Linford Detweiler:

We try to tell the truth and make it rhyme.

Over the Rhine letter, November 1, 2012

Rita Mae Brown:

English is at its highest and best use in comedy.  Unfortunately, comedy is much harder to write than straight prose or tragedy.  And fewer people understand true comedy.  Everyone understands slapstick, but real comedy presupposes intelligence and the ability to discern not just different levels of language, but different levels among people.

Rita Will, p. 278

Robert Frost:

There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.

Austin Kleon:

Don't wait until you know who you are to get started.

Steal Like an Artist, p. 24-25

Seth Godin:

Art is hard.  Selling is hard.  Writing is hard.  Making a difference is hard.  When you're doing hard work, getting rejected, failing, working it out -- this is a dumb time to make a situational decision about whether it's time for a nap or a day off or a coffee break.  Zig Ziglar taught me this twenty years ago.  Make your schedule before you start.

Poke the Box, p. 18-19

Frank Schaeffer:

My beef with the New Atheists and with religious fundamentalists is that their ideas just don't seem aesthetically pleasing or imbued with the poetry that I experience in real life.

Patience With God, p.56

Norman Vincent Peale:

You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind.  Your mind gets bored and therefore tired doing nothing.  You don't have to be tired.  Get interested in something.  Get absolutely enthralled in something.  Throw yourself into it with abandon.  Get out of yourself.  Be somebody.  Do something.  Don't sit around moaning about things, reading the papers, and saying, "Why don't they do something?"  The man who is out doing something isn't tired.  If you're not getting into good causes, no wonder you're tired.  You're disintegrating.  You're deteriorating.  You're dying on the vine.  The more you lose yourself in something, the more energy you will have.

Linford Detweiler:

Songs are safe containers for the best and worst that life has to offer.

Over the Rhine letter, November 1, 2012

Rita Mae Brown:

Comedy, in the grand sense, is the richest vein of English.  The language breathes, expands, turns golden with comedy, for an English sentence is capable of conveying irony, pathos, wit and humor simultaneously.

Rita Will, p. 278

Robert Frost:

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

Austin Kleon:

I always carry a book, a pen, and a notepad, and I always enjoy my solitude and temporary captivity.

Steal Like an Artist, p. 92

Seth Godin:

As soon as we willingly and blindly accept what's given, we lose all power.  Only by poking, testing, modifying, and understanding can we truly own anything, truly exert our influence.

Poke the Box, p. 10

Frank Schaeffer:

I don't think we need a creator to explain anything, such as design and order.  What I do believe we need, and will eventually find, is that there is spiritual meaning that exists objectively, apart from us, and comes from God (or from what we call "God").  And that that meaning, for now, is best expressed by the words "Love your neighbor" and "Thank you."

Patience With God, p. 64

Kate Chopin:

Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life.

Daniel Dennett:

All toxic parts of religion depend on the enforced ignorance of the young.

Rita Mae Brown:

One need not agree with people in order to learn.  I don't agree with Otto von Bismarck but I've learned from his life and work.

Rita Will, p. 275

Robert Frost:

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

Austin Kleon:

What makes us interesting isn't just what we've experienced, but also what we haven't experienced.  The same is true when you do your work: You must embrace your limitations and keep moving.

Steal Like an Artist, p. 140

Seth Godin:

Once you've engaged with an organization or a relationship or a community, you owe it it your team to start.  To initiate.  To be the one who makes something happen.  To do less is to steal from them.

Poke the Box, p, 64

Frank Schaeffer:

Although they usually seem to lack the self-criticism gene, and I do not agree with a lot that the New Atheists have written or said, nevertheless I think that they are doing us a service by offering their harsh critiques of religion.

Patience With God, p. 7

Isabel Miller:

What a beautiful word "two" is.

Patience & Sarah, p. 193

Rita Mae Brown:

I decided to write a novel.  Everyone said how hard it was to write one, journalists especially.  I figured, what the hell.  If I fell on my face, I'd pick myself up and do something else.  What was the big deal?

Rita Will, p. 272

Austin Kleon:

Establishing and keeping a routine can be even more important than having a lot of time.  Inertia is the death of creativity.  You have to stay in the groove.  When you get out of the groove, you start to dread the work, because you know it's going to suck for a while -- it's going to suck until you get back into the flow.

Steal Like an Artist, p. 124