Quotes from Donald Miller

People trust those who understand them, and they trust brands that understand them too.

Imagine your customer is a hitchhiker. You pull over to give him a ride, and the one burning question on his mind is simply Where are you going? But as he approaches, you roll down the window and start talking about your mission statement, or how your grandfather built this car with his bare hands, or how your road-trip playlist is all 1980s alternative. This person doesn't care.

I don't trust people to accept who I am in process. I'm the kind of person who wants to present my most honest, authentic self to the world—so I hide backstage and rehearse honest and authentic lines until the curtain opens.

When you live countless stories in which you play a sedentary role, it's an odd feeling to switch stories.

How can we be loved if we are always in hiding?

The reality is this, though: a healthy person coupled with an unhealthy person will still result in an unhealthy relationship.

It hurts now, but I'll love this memory, I thought to myself. And I do.

pretty websites don't sell things. Words sell things.

But it's better when you have somebody to go home to and talk about it with, somebody who is more in love with you than impressed by you.

Then, Paul remembered a Bible verse from 1 John. He said that John, in summarizing all that he'd learned about God, said this: "God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all." "When you are with God," Paul said, "there is no darkness, ho hiding, no pretending. When you are with God, you have the freedom and courage to be yourself.

The risk of being known is also the decision to be criticized by some.

The harshest people I've met over the years have had two things in common: they don't fully trust anybody, and they view relationships as a means to an end.

Oprah Winfrey, an undeniably successful guide to millions, once explained the three things every human being wants most are to be seen, heard, and understood. This is the essence of empathy.

Work on your character and a good life will come to you.

It's funny what happens to you when part of your heart gets born inside somebody else.

The strongest character in a story isn't the hero, it's the guide.

It makes me wonder how many people have damaged their own lives by mistaking enablement for grace?

I think a lot of the shame-based religious and political methodology has more to do with keeping people contained than with setting them free. And I'm no fan of it.

In my opinion the misappropriation of the longing for God has caused a lot of people a great deal of pain. In fact, I wondered if some of my early mistakes in relationships weren't partly because I sought to find resolution for the longing through a woman, a burden no romantic partner should have to bear. How many relationships have been ruined by two people attempting to squeeze the Jesus out of each other?

We both have our independence and freedom, but we have those things with each other. It's a paradox, but it works. It all reminded me of what my friend Henry Cloud told me, that when two people are entirely and completely separate they are finally compatible to be one. Nobody's self-worth lives inside of another person. Intimacy means we are independently together.

I was a tree in a story about a forest, the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree

The human body essentially recreates iteself every six months. Nearly every cell of hair and skin and bone dies and another is directed to its former place. You are not who you were in February.

Relationships matter. They matter as much as exercise and nutrition. And not all relationships help us reach our goals. God doesn't give us crying, pooping children because he wants to advance our careers. He gives them to us for the same reason he confused language at the Tower of Babel, to create chaos and deter us from investing too much energy in the gluttonous idols of self-absorption.

Of his new book, Don says: "It might be the greatest book ever written. I don't think anybody is going to read a book again after they read my new one. I think God is proud of me. I am going to make a killing off this thing and I'm going to use the money to go to space.