This book tried to smash my normally pessimistic demeanor, but luckily I've had years of practice at being a cynical jerk so it'll take more than one reading of this or any other book to change my outlook.  It did have some highlights that you may find interesting...

"None of us can help the things life has done to us. They are done before you realize it and once they are done, they make you do other things, until at last everything comes between you and what you'd like to be, and you've lost your true self forever." —from Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night"

"Because we are all priests before God, there is no such distinction as "secular or sacred." In fact, the opposite of sacred is not secular; the opposite of sacred is profane. In short, no follower of Christ does secular work. We all have a sacred calling."

"The gospel declares that the Holy Spirit brings about a new birth and that because of the Spirit's power within us, we gain the ability to do God's will. In other words, the new birth and the new walk are supernaturally bestowed. If by the sheer power of the will even a "pagan" is able to comply with a tough set of rules for living, then what does it say of the Christian who supposedly is supernaturally endowed but lives a duplicitous life?"

"Our will has no power to do God's will until it first dies to its own desires and the Holy Spirit brings a fresh power within."

"Who am I? What does it mean to "be"? The answer is this: I am a child of God related to my heavenly Father. I must be this child in my own understanding. I am not my own, I belong to him. Resting in that knowledge, I know what it is to be his. I should pursue doing God's will, then, and by his grace he will enable my will."

"A conviction is not merely an opinion. It is something rooted so deeply in the conscience that to change a conviction would be to change the very essence of who you are."

"When you sow a thought you reap an act; when you sow an act you reap conduct; when you sow conduct you reap character; when you sow character you reap a destiny."  —Unknown

"There are many angles at which you can fall and only one angle at which you can stand straight." 

—Chesterton

"The truth is that when we lose mystery, our worship becomes merely a grocery list of actions and pronouncements."

"It's so easy to lash out and cut and condemn with prophetic zeal. Pulling someone down is easy; building someone up is difficult. It takes a mature and patient heart to heal with a tender touch without compromising one's convictions."  "...without justifying their mistakes, Jesus brought hope and healing, not condemnation and reprimand. But we tend to focus on each other's mistakes and sins. We hurt and injure the already injured. We knock out the already knocked down. We have lost the shared meanings of pain, and so the shared meanings of victory become occasions for jealousy."