“What would you think if I told you that, yes, your bad choices and decisions have had a part in your ending up under this pier, but beyond that, under this pier is exactly where you should be in order for a future to occur that you can’t even imagine at this point?”

“I've got to be willing to enter into and do battle with the confusion in order to reach the victory on the other side. It's like, I am here, confusion is in front of me, and just beyond confusion waits the answer or skill I need to take my life in a new and incredible direction.”

“The culture you live in today is the culture you have allowed. That is true of your family, and it is true of your country."Never forget that you will shape the culture in which you exist, or the culture you allow will determine how and - maybe someday - if you are allowed to exist.”

“The bottom line on the declaration, 'This is part of our culture,' is this: At its best, this is a choice made with little or no critical thinking about future results. At its worst, it is merely an excuse to do what one wants to do. It is selfish, leaderless, pack behavior with unconsidered consequences that ultimately destroy families, neighborhoods, cities, and before you know it, generations.”

“Our choices now - this week, this month, this year - are very sticky. Once made, their effects never go away. Rather, those choices about how we think and what we do are a constant presence. Every thought, every action is a choice, and even now the choices you have made in your life thus far are shifting and combining in order to create who you really are. Therefore, simple logic says that by paying careful attention to our choices from this point forward, we can create a future we choose instead of a future that 'happens.”

“When I was 19 years old, both of my parents died in the same year; my mom of cancer and my dad in a car accident. Through the next two or three years and a series of bad decisions - all my own, I might add - I ended up literally homeless, before that was even a word. I even slept occasionally under a pier on the Gulf Coast.”

“I am a teacher and the reason I'm a teacher is because I'm learning as hard as I can. I'm not any different from anybody else. I am searching and having some success finding answers.”

“Self discipline is the ability to make yourself do something you don’t necessarily want to do, to get a result you would really like to have.”

“Those who are critical of my goals and dreams simply do not understand the higher purpose to which I have been called.”

“My life - my personality, my habits, even my speech - is a combination of the books I choose to read, the people I choose to listen to, and the thoughts I choose to tolerate in my mind”

“When you know that everything matters—that every move counts as much as any other—you will begin living a life of permanent purpose.”