Jennifer Egan Quotes

You can change. You can 'come unto Christ, and be perfected in him.'

I remember walking down the aisle, and I got down on my knees as a person who is so selfish, but when I rose back up the Lord had become the Master of my life.

Oh Lord, help me change my ways, Show a litlle mercy on judgement day, It aint me I was raised this way, Never let em' play me for a busta, Makin' hell for a huslter.

I once was lost, but now am found.

I am not what I ought to be! Ah! how imperfect and deficient! - I am not what I wish to be! I 'abhor what is evil,' and I would 'cleave to what is good!' - I am not what I hope to be! Soon, soon, I shall put off mortality: and with mortality all sin and imperfection! Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was - a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the Apostle, and acknowledge; By the grace of God, I am what I am!

Praised be the Lord, who has redeemed me from myself.

It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands.

The Savior desires to save us from our inadequacies as well as our sins. Inadequacy is not the same as being sinful - we have far more control over the choice to sin than we may have over our innate capacity. . . . A sense of falling short or falling down is not only natural but essential to the mortal experience. Still, after all we can do, the Atonement can fill that which is empty, straighten our bent parts, and make strong that which is weak.

It struck me, sharp and hard, that I had been given so many chances to save my soul that my entire life had been constructed around these chances! That was my nature - going from temptation to temptation, not to sin, but to be redeemed.

I knew my life had been given back for a purpose.

I was always real back and forth about the whole religion and God. That comes from me just dealing with that pain when I was younger, and just growing up, living that particular street lifestyle. It brought my relationship with God into question many times. I wanted to repair that and fix that, and that's what I went in and did. I did all of that. I wrote many albums and all that kind of stuff, but the most important part was fixing my mind, body, and soul; getting it together, really getting it together where I could have a future, and a successful future.

If there's something in your life that you know needs changing, make sure you change it before God's got to change it. Because if God's got to change it, you ain't going to like it.

In my case Pilgrim's Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am.

In the past few years I have begun the process of becoming a new man.

I was a punk. I think that's why I'm such a good person now, because I was such a bad guy then.

I have a second chance on life.

The Savior isn't our last chance; He is our only chance. Our only chance to overcome self-doubt and catch a vision of who we may become. Our only chance to repent and have our sins washed clean.

I can remember the night I became a Christian. And man, this weight came off of me and all that kind of stuff. What I didn't realize was, that was just the beginning - of a huge journey.

I feel like I have a new life and I'm going to take full advantage of it.

I asked myself, 'What are you going to do with your life? Are you going to be like everyone else or are you going to do what's right?' I just made a decision. I said, 'It's time to grow up. It's time to start living for the Lord, do things the right way.' I accepted the Lord, and it changed my life.

Sometimes your medicine bottle has on it, 'Shake well before using.' That is what God has to do with some of His people. He has to shake them well before they are ever usable.

When the soul drifts uncertainly between life and the dream, between the mind's disorder and the return to cool reflection, it is in religious thought that we should seek consolation.

All the muddy waters of my life cleared up when I gave myself to Christ.

I don't think anyone, until their soul leaves their body, is past the point of no return.

To rise from error to truth is rare and beautiful.