Moral Journey Quotes

Character is a journey, not a destination.

How easy it is to see your brother's faults, How hard it is to face your own. You winnow his in the wind like chaff, But yours you hide, Like a cheat covering up an unlucky throw. Dwelling on your brother's faults Multiplies your own. You are far from the end of your journey. The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart. See how you love.

I'm big on story structure. I studied with John Truby, who mapped out story by means of moral wants and needs, and that's what I do. Hey, so does John Irving.

You can make somebody bad for a long time, and people love it when they then do one good thing and it's almost like a triumph. Actors seem to enjoy it more.

The rest of us are still trying to find ways to live in the world with spirit-ual values. Myself included. We've learned certain skills, we've learned to prevail somewhat, but we've not made it over the mountain.

Your business as a writer is not to illustrate virtue but to show how a fellow may move toward it or away from it.

When I create a character, particularly my central character, I want someone who is interesting and feels real and who might have quite a few virtues but is unlikely to be perfect, who hasn't necessarily made all the right choices.

Every life is a march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or vice.

I love all men and women. I am a lover of humanity, not a hater. … I have been immoral, drunk, high. I ran with the wicked people for 28 years and I have run with the Jesus people since and the contrast is astounding.

The good is, like nature, an immense landscape in which man advances through centuries of exploration.

A healthy soul stands united with the Just and the True, as the magnet arranges itself with the pole, so that he stands to all beholders like a transparent object betwixt them and the sun, and whoso journeys towards the sun, journeys towards that person. He is thus the medium of the highest influence to all who are not on the same level.