Tullian Tchividjian Quotes

I don't think things are ever exactly the way one expects, and I don't think things are ever the way one assumes they are at the moment. What I actually think is that one has no idea of what things are like, ever.

The interesting thing about life is, there is what you think is going to happen, and what actually happens.

Reality is the name we give to our disappointments.

Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect.

You can predict all you want, but everybody knows what predictions get you.

When ideas are confronted with reality, there will always be surprises.

Before you go through with an experience, think about what you expect it to feel like. Once you've experienced it, reflect on whether your expectations differed from reality.

Things are always different from what they might be.

I always see those of whom I have heard well with a slight disappointment. They are so much better than the great herd, and yet the heavens are not shivered into diamonds over their heads.

Expectations are the most perilous form of dream, and when dreams do realise themselves it is in the waking world: the difference is subtly but often painfully felt.

The thing we look forward to often comes to pass, but never precisely in the way we have imagined to ourselves.

Even if you think the grass is greener on the other side, you’re going to have to mow that side too.

[A] pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.

"Nothing ever happens like you imagine it will," she says. The sky is like a monochromatic contemporary painting, drawing me in with its illusion of depth, pulling me up. "Yeah, that's true," I say. But then after I think about it for a second, I add, "But then again, if you don't imagine, nothing ever happens at all."

We are never either so fortunate or so misfortunate as we imagine.

When we touch the foundation of the reality of the good news of God, we will never bother Him anymore with little personal complaints.

Life is not what you expected it to be.

We never get upset over what happens. Never. We get upset because of preconceived ideas as to what we think should happen, what we want to happen. When our preference clashes with the reality, we get hurt. Rid yourself of all preconceived ideas as to what should happen. You are then at peace whatever happens.

If you aren't the woman I think you are, then this isn't the world I thought it was.

Her face crashes. She hasn't dealt with a single transfusion or lumbar puncture. She wasn't allowed near me for the bone-marrow transplant, but she could have been there for any number of diagnoses, and wasn't. Even her promises to visit more often have faded away with Christmas. It's her turn to taste some reality.

I saw that everything famous and beautiful in the world, if we judge by the descriptions and drawings of writers and artists, always loses when we go to see it and examine it closely.

All obstacles now vanish from my pathway. Doors fly open, gates are lifted and I enter the kingdom of fulfillment, under grace.

Things seem greater by imagination than they are in effect.

I asked you what you wanted and you said you didn't want anything. And I told you I wasn't planning on giving you anything; I was planning on giving you something.

Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.