110+ Donald Miller Quotes (Inspiring, Relatable And Refreshing)

Donald Miller is an American author, speaker, and entrepreneur. He is best known for his memoir, Blue Like Jazz, which was later adapted into a feature film. Miller is also the founder and CEO of Storyline, a company that helps people and organizations discover the stories they want to tell.

Top 10 Donald Miller Quotes

1. When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.
2. I have sometimes wondered if the greatest desire of man is to be known and loved anyway.
3. And so I have come to understand that strength, inner strength, comes from receiving love as much as it comes from giving it.
4. If we knew how much God loved us and was for us, we’d talk to Him all day long.
5. People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen.
6. Truth grew in my mind like a fungus, and though I tried to sleep it out, there was no resisting the epiphanies.
7. The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: life is a story about me.
8. Believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is making a decision. Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon.
9. Fear isn’t only a guide to keep us safe; it’s also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life … the great stories go to those who don’t give in to fear.
10. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made fo figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently.

Donald Miller Short Quotes

• We have to have positive male role models.
• It is no coincidence that Jesus talks endlessly about love. Free love. Unconditional love.
• Fear is a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life.
• Self-discipline will never make us feel righteous or clean; accepting God's love will.
• Your life is a blank page. You write on it.
• ...a beggar's kingdom is better than a proud man's delusion.
• I think each of us can, through our writing, discover our super power
• Sunday morning church service is not an enormous priority; spending time with other believers is.
• Being a Christian is more like falling in love than understanding a series of ideas.
• The greatest stories go to those who don’t give in to fear.

Donald Miller Famous Quotes And Sayings

If I have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, “Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you.” — Donald Miller

To be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously. And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can't accept who God is; a Being that is love. We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people. That is why God tells us so many times to love each other. — Donald Miller

And once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can't go back to being normal; you can't go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time. — Donald Miller

What I’m saying is I think life is staggering and we’re just used to it. We all are like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we’re given—it’s just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving in over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral. — Donald Miller

At the time, I didn't know what forgiveness meant. I wouldn't really know what forgiveness meant for another year, until my pastor, Rick McKinley, happened to spell it out in a sermon. He said that when you forgive, you bear the burden somebody has given you without holding them accountable. — Donald Miller

We shouldn’t be afraid to embrace whimsy, that nagging idea that life could be magical; it could be special if we were only willing to take a few risks. — Donald Miller

Every creative person, and I think probably every other person, faces resistance when they are trying to create something good...The harder the resistance, the more important the task must be. — Donald Miller

When something happens to you, you have two choices in how to deal with it. You can either get bitter, or get better. — Donald Miller

He said to me I was a tree in a story about a forest, and that it was arrogant of me to believe any differently. And he told me the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree. — Donald Miller

It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things. — Donald Miller

The human body essentially recreates itself 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 last November. — Donald Miller

When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. And when you stop expecting material possessions to complete you, you'd be surprised at how much pleasure you get in material possessions. And when you stop expecting God to end all your troubles, you'd be surprised how much you like spending time with God. — Donald Miller

And if these mountains had eyes, they would wake to find two strangers in their fences, standing in admiration as a breathing red pours its tinge upon earth's shore. These mountains, which have seen untold sunrises, long to thunder praise but stand reverent, silent so that man's weak praise should be given God's attention. — Donald Miller

If what you are doing is important, you will encounter resistance. If what you are doing isn't important it will be easy. — Donald Miller

I don't know why it is, exactly, but the people with the healthiest self-esteem, are also the greatest at intimacy. I'm not talking about arrogant people. I'm talking about people who know they are both good and bad yet believe at the deepest level they are really good for people. — Donald Miller

There are two types of men in this world--one is looking for a woman to make his life complete and the other is looking for a woman to join his complete life. — Donald Miller

When I was in love there was somebody in the world who was more important than me, and that, given all that happened at the fall of man, is a miracle, like something God forgot to curse. — Donald Miller

I heard once that real love doesn't ask what is in it for me; it just gives unconditionally. It just tries to take the weight out of somebody else's pack, lessen his load, and if it gets reciprocated, that's great, but that isn't what you did it for. — Donald Miller

We don't need as much as we have. Hardly any of us need as much money as we have. It's true what they say about the best things in life being free. — Donald Miller

Christian spirituality was not a children's story. It wasn't cute or neat. It was mystical and odd and clean, and it was reaching into dirty. There was wonder in it and enchantment. — Donald Miller

Lets choose to do something really difficult, something that saves lives, and let's do that thing with people we love. — Donald Miller

Earthly love… is temporal and slight so that is has to be given again and again in order for us to feel any sense of security; but God’s love, God’s voice and presence, would instill our souls with such affirmation we would need nothing more and would cause us to love other people so much we would be willing to die for them. — Donald Miller

I am early in my story, but I believe I will stretch out into eternity, and in heaven I will reflect upon these early days, these days when it seemed God was down a dirt road, walking toward me. Years ago He was a swinging speck in the distance; now He is close enough I can hear His singing. Soon I will see the lines on His face. — Donald Miller

Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons. — Donald Miller

Be encouraged. Your heart is writing a poem on the world and it's being turned into a thousand songs. — Donald Miller

God made a whole beautiful earth and decided to put you in it, to experience all of this beauty. You can't do that watching television all the time. — Donald Miller

It’s interesting that in the Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes, the only practical advice given about living a meaningful life is to find a job you like, enjoy your marriage, and obey God. It’s as though God is saying, Write a good story, take somebody with you, and let me help. — Donald Miller

My Sunday school teachers had turned Bible narrative into children's fables. They talked about Noah and the ark because the story had animals in it. They failed to mention that this was when God massacred all of humanity. — Donald Miller

I think the best thing a person can do is to read through the Gospels in the Bible and really look at Jesus, because if a person does this, they will realize that the Jesus they learned about in Sunday school or the Jesus they hear jokes about or the skinny, Gandhi Jesus that exists in their imaginations isn't anything like the real Jesus at all. — Donald Miller

I am something of a recluse by nature. I am that cordless screwdriver that has to charge for twenty hours to earn ten minutes use. I need that much downtime. — Donald Miller

Humans are designed to seek comfort and order, and so if they have comfort and order, they tend to plant themselves, even if their comfort isn't all that comfortable. And even if they secretly want for something better. — Donald Miller

No love is conditional. If love is conditional, it’s just some sort of manipulation masquerading as love. — Donald Miller

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. — Donald Miller

All this beauty exists so you and I can see His glory, His artwork. It's like an invitation to worship Him, to know Him. — Donald Miller

Telling the truth is the slow, mundane, difficult route to a meaningful life. Anything else is cheating. — Donald Miller

When I started studying the issue and issues related to fatherlessness, I realized I had all of them. Fear of intimacy, fear of commitment, poor work ethic, just stuff that you don't have when you don't have a man in your life to look you in the eye and say, "You're good," or "Good job." — Donald Miller

I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes. — Donald Miller

I think that's the true litmus test for someone who has become closer to Jesus: their heart is more loving, accepting, childlike, less believing that they have all the answers and more believing in Him. — Donald Miller

If you don't feel free and be yourself, you can't connect. Find people who accept your quirks. They'll heal your soul. — Donald Miller

What I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do. I used to say that I believed it was important to tell people about Jesus, but I never did. A friend kindly explained that if I do not introduce people to Jesus, then I don't believe Jesus is an important person. It doesn't matter what I say. We live for what we believe. — Donald Miller

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. — Donald Miller

When you fly across the country in an airplane the country seems vast; but it isn't vast. It's all connected by roads one can ride a bike down. If you watch the news and there's a tragedy at a house in Kansas, that guy's driveway connects with yours, and you'd be surprised by how few roads it takes to get there. — Donald Miller

I am human because God made me. I experience suffering and temptation because mankind chose to follow Satan. God is reaching out to me to rescue me. I am learning to trust Him, learning to live by His precepts that I might be preserved. — Donald Miller

There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing. (They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free-form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz.) And as I lay there, it occurred to me that God is up there somewhere. — Donald Miller

The words 'alone,' 'lonely,' and 'loneliness' are three of the most powerful words in the English language. Those words say that we are human; they are like the words hunger and thirst. But they are not words about the body, they are words about the soul. — Donald Miller

The sexual conquest is huge with men in terms of affirming themselves and their feelings of masculinity. That's a misguided kind of affirmation. That is not helpful, but that stuff happens. — Donald Miller

The very scary thing about religion, to me, is that people actually believe God is who they think He is. — Donald Miller

Without a positive male role model in your life it is extremely difficult to become a man who benefits his family and benefits society. — Donald Miller

Flattery has a short battery life, but reminding people they are amazing and precious and wanted and works of art can truly change their lives. — Donald Miller

I think if you like somebody you have to tell them. It might be embarrassing to say it, but you will never regret stepping up. I know from personal experience, however, that you should not keep telling a girl that you like her after she tells you she isn't into it. You should not keep riding your bike by her house either. — Donald Miller

I didnt like being reminded about how self-absorbed i was. I wanted to be over this, done with this. I didnt want to live in a broken world or a broken me. I wasnt trying to weasel out of anything. I just wasnt in the mood of being on the earth that night. I get like that sometimes when it rains, or when i see certain sad movies. — Donald Miller

And when you find love, or when you are mature enough to understand it, the feeling you get is gratitude. — Donald Miller

There's a lot of letters, and a lot of people come say "hi" at book signings, but I'm amazed at how normal everybody is. — Donald Miller

When we talk about the decline of the American family, I think we have to go back to the Industrial Revolution. — Donald Miller

If you buy the website, maybe you'll do something with it. But so far I haven't; we'll see. — Donald Miller

Good writers show rather than tell. Stories are told in action. Life stories are no different. — Donald Miller

The most important thing that happens within Christian spirituality is when a person falls in love with Jesus. — Donald Miller

One of the things I love about our source text as Christians, the Bible is that it teaches us not to avoid conflict. And it teaches us that before the fall of man, in Paradise, there was conflict. God wants conflict to be a part of your life. — Donald Miller

For me, the beginning of sharing my faith with people began by throwing out Christianity and embracing Christian spirituality, a nonpolitical mysterious system that can be experienced but not explained. — Donald Miller

The downside of being a writer is you get plenty of time to overthink your life. — Donald Miller

I think writers would do better to consider that idea [to write to yourself], because you know yourself really well, and you never know your demographic fully. You only get into trouble if you try to please somebody you don't really understand. — Donald Miller

the times we worked harder to make the day stand out. our story demanded that we change and so we did. — Donald Miller

Book of Ecclesiastes, God is saying... Write a good story, take somebody with you and let me help — Donald Miller

I think understanding your life as a story is a really terrific way of kind of knowing where you are and knowing who you are. — Donald Miller

THINGS JESUS NEVER SAID: "You should come with me to church. — Donald Miller

And through a dark night of the soul, I came to realize that salvation happens through a mysterious, indefinable, relational interaction with Jesus in which we become one with Him. I realized Christian conversion worked more like falling in love than understanding a series of concepts of ideas. This is not to say there are no true ideas, it is only to say there is something else, something beyond. — Donald Miller

If you want to bond with your friends, do something very hard with them, something that you won't be able to do alone. — Donald Miller

People are lonely. They want company and your book can provide them company and a little bit of hope. And there's nothing wrong with that. — Donald Miller

It was a haunting feeling, the sort of sensation you get when you wonder whether you are two people, the other of which does things you can't explain, bad and terrible things. — Donald Miller

I think, in the grand epic, Jesus is the hero of our stories. And our stories, as they were, are subplots in a grand epic and our job is not to be the hero of any story. Our job is to be a saint in a story that he is telling. — Donald Miller

Let's show up to life. Let's prove how beautiful it can really be. Let's face the conflict, redeem it, conquer it, and allow it to mold our character. Let's participate in what God is doing in the world. — Donald Miller

It is when people do not allow God to show up through them ... that the world collapses in on itself. — Donald Miller

People who live great stories know failure isn’t a judgment, it’s an education. — Donald Miller

Nothing is going to change in congo until you and i figure out what is wrong with the person inside the mirror — Donald Miller

Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them. — Donald Miller

Great stories move through fear. — Donald Miller

I want to start replacing my “fix” response with an “enjoy” response and just let people be themselves. — Donald Miller

I have friends who are writers, but we don't tend to talk about literature very much. It's just not part of my process; I tend to be pretty secretive about what I'm working on. — Donald Miller

You never question the truth of something until you have to explain it to a skeptic. — Donald Miller

We don't think of our flaws as the glue that binds us to the people we love, but they are. Grace only sticks to your imperfections. — Donald Miller

I think that every living person, every person who is awake to the functioning principles within his reality has a moment where he stops blaming the problems in the world on group thinking, on humanity and authority, and starts to face himself. I hate this more than anything. This is the hardest principle within christian spirituality for me to deal with. The problem is not out there, the problem is the needy beast of a thing living in my chest. — Donald Miller

...if I do not introduce people to Jesus, then I don't believe Jesus is an important person. It doesn't matter what I say. — Donald Miller

The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won't make a story meaningful, it won't make a life meaningful either. — Donald Miller

People want to join a great story. If you want to lead, tell one with your life. — Donald Miller

We don't know how much we are capable of loving until the people we love are being taken away, until a beautiful story is ending. — Donald Miller

We live in a world where bad stories are told, stories that teach us life doesn't mean anything and that humanity has no great purpose. It's a good calling, then, to speak a better story. How brightly a better story shines. How easily the world looks to it in wonder. How grateful we are to hear these stories, and how happy it makes us to repeat them. — Donald Miller

But the people who took the bus didn't experience the city as we experienced the city. The pain made the city more beautiful. The story made us different characters than we would have been if we had skipped the story and showed up at the ending an easier way. — Donald Miller

Every human being is searching for a deep sense of meaning, and yet we're all chasing success. We've confused one for the other. — Donald Miller

Somehow I had come to believe that because a person is in need, they are candidates for sympathy, not just charity. It was not that I wanted to buy her groceries, the government was already doing that. I wanted to buy her dignity. And yet, by judging her, I was the one taking her dignity away. — Donald Miller

We don't naturally want to take responsibility for our lives. We want to give the responsibility to someone else. We blame them when our lives aren't good. — Donald Miller

Life Lessons by Donald Miller

1. Donald Miller teaches us the importance of being honest with ourselves and others about our feelings and experiences, and to be open to the possibilities of change.
2. He encourages us to live a life of purpose and to focus on our relationships with others.
3. He also reminds us of the power of storytelling and how it can be used to connect with people and create meaningful experiences.