When the principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day then the battle is your calling and peace has become sin. You must at the price of dearest peace lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy with all the fire of your faith.

The Great Inflation of the 1970s destroyed faith in paper assets because if you held a bond suddenly the bond was worth much less money than it was before.

Today we often think that before we start living a religious life we have first to accept the creedal doctrines and that before one can have any comprehension of the loyalty and trust of faith one must first force one's mind to accept a host of incomprehensible doctrines. But this is to put the cart before the horse.

It's possible that the 2012 general-election race will be the least overtly religious one since 1972 the last campaign before Roe v. Wade and the rise of Jimmy Carter brought evangelicalism into the political mainstream. That's because faith remains a complicated issue for Obama who is still wrongly thought to be a Muslim in some quarters.

I come now to tell you for what I am brought here to die and to give you an account of my faith which I shall do as in the sight of the living God before whom I am shortly to stand.

I had faith in Israel before it was established I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it - not just another sovereign nation but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.

It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.

I made a very conscious effort to finish 'The Cypress House' before 'So Cold the River' launched because I thought that would help build a buffer between my writing and any impact that came from either the success or the failure of that first book.

Before this government came to power many failing schools were simply allowed to drift on in a pattern of continuing failure. The government is determined to break that pattern and is successfully doing so.

I met Ashley two weeks before I married him. It was a joke-the most ridiculous thing I've ever done. Once I was married I didn't want to be a failure so I stuck it out for six months which was about six months too long.

Before I was married I didn't consider my failure to manage even basic hand tools a feminist inadequacy. I thought it had more to do with being Jewish. The Jews I knew growing up didn't do 'do-it-yourself.' When my father needed to hammer something he generally used his shoe and the only real tool he owned was a pair of needle-nose pliers.

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.

Every great work every big accomplishment has been brought into manifestation through holding to the vision and often just before the big achievement comes apparent failure and discouragement.

Think twice before you speak because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.

Before you can win a game you have to not lose it.

Before success comes in any man's life he's sure to meet with much temporary defeat and perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That's exactly what the majority of men do.

I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them.

Before this learning experience I had assumed that with regard to programs that sought to help people out of poverty the political world was essentially divided into two camps: conservatives who opposed these for a variety of reasons and liberals who supported them.

I definitely feel more complete than before. There's a void you have when you don't feel you've found the other part of who you are so I'm in a different place now and that's nice to experience.

Bottom up thinkers try to start from experience and move from experience to understanding. They don't start with certain general principles they think beforehand are likely to be true they just hope to find out what reality is like.

When I was 12 years old someone took me to see Martha Graham. It was nothing like what I thought of as serious dancing and even then I knew I was having a great experience. It was as if somebody was moving through space like no one ever did before.

Yet higher religion which is only a search for a larger life is essentially experience and recognized the necessity of experience as its foundation long before science learnt to do so.

Mississippi Mermaid was a very special experience because we only had the dialogues for the scenes we were shooting the night before.

Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another.