Top 140 Jan Karon Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13.”

— Jan Karon

2. “Lord, make me a blessing to someone today.”

— Jan Karon

3. “Don’t feel totally, personally, irrevocably responsible for everything. That’s my job. Signed, God.”

— Jan Karon

4. “Writing is a way of processing our lives. And it can be a way of healing.”

— Jan Karon

5. “Love is an endless act of forgiveness.”

— Jan Karon

6. “There are three stages in the work of God: impossible, difficult, done.”

— Jan Karon

7. “Human nature is what we were put on this earth to rise above. K. Hepburn in The African Queen.”

— Jan Karon

8. “Give me faith, Lord, to know Your Presence as surely as I know the beating of my own heart. I’ve felt so far from You...”

— Jan Karon

9. “Knitting, he thought, was a comfort to the soul. It was regular. It was repetitious. And, in the end, it amounted to something.”

— Jan Karon

10. “Father, make me a blessing to someone today, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

— Jan Karon

11. “Don’t fear whatever God lays before you today.”

— Jan Karon

12. “Thank you, God, for loving me, and for sending your Son to die for my sins. I sincerely repent of my sins, and receive Christ as my personal savior. Now, as your child, I turn my entire life over to you. Amen.”

— Jan Karon

13. “Go, and be as the butterfly.”

— Jan Karon

14. “Bottom line, wasn’t life itself a special occasion?”

— Jan Karon

15. “Every saint has a past, the sixteenth-century poet had said, and every sinner has a future.”

— Jan Karon

16. “The firefly only shines when on the wing, So it is with us – when we stop, we darken.”

— Jan Karon

17. “Keep a clear eye toward life’s end. Do not forget your purpose and testing as God’s creature. What you are in His sight is what you are and nothing more. Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing that you have received... but only what you have given; a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage. -Francis of Assisi.”

— Jan Karon

18. “When the trees and the power lines crashed around you, when the very roof gave way above you, when the light turned to darkness and water turned to dust, did you call on Him? When you called on Him, was He somewhere up there, or was He as near as your very breath?”

— Jan Karon

19. “My friend, if you keep your eyes on Christians, you will be disappointed every day of your life. Your hope is to keep your eyes on Christ.”

— Jan Karon

20. “To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard ; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common – this is my symphony. William Henry Channing, clergyman, reformer, 1810-1884.”

— Jan Karon

21. “Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past; be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know thee as thou art revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of thy love, amen.”

— Jan Karon

22. “There may be circumstances in this life that God uses to keep bringing us back to Him, looking for His grace.”

— Jan Karon

23. “Fear knocked, faith answered. No one was there.”

— Jan Karon

24. “I have confidence that God is with us in all things, both tender and tough.”

— Jan Karon

25. “No two persons every read the same book. – Edmund Wilson “Nor does any one person ever reread the same book!”

— Jan Karon

26. “The right seminary gives you tools. The Holy Spirit gives you the user’s manual. How the tools are used is different with everybody. A thousand priests, a thousand ministries. All glorifying one God.”

— Jan Karon

27. “Listening is among the most generous ways to give. When a loved one talks to us – whether their words appear to be deep or shallow – listen. For in some way, they are baring their souls.”

— Jan Karon

28. “I made real sacrifices and took big risks. But living, it seems to me, is largely about risk.”

— Jan Karon

29. “As long as you have any floor space at all, you have room for books! Just make two stacks of books the same height, place them three or four feet apart, lay a board across them, and repeat. Viola! Bookshelves!”

— Jan Karon

30. “When we turn from our sin, and have the blessed forgiveness of the Almighty, then we can ask Him to run things, and let Him be in charge.”

— Jan Karon

31. “I learned over a long period of trial and error to see in him what God made him to be. Wounded people use a lot of smoke and mirrors, they thrust the bitterness and rage out there like a shield. Then it becomes their banner, and finally, their weapon. But I stopped falling for the bitterness and rage. I didn’t stop knowing it was there – and there for a very good reason – but I stopped taking the bullet for it. With God’s help, I was able to start seeing through the smoke.”

— Jan Karon

32. “I live in a village where people still care about each other, largely.”

— Jan Karon

33. “Loving can be hard. Sometimes we don’t feel loving, but it isn’t all about feeling. Very often it is about will. Practice that if you can.”

— Jan Karon

34. “There is no such thing as too many deviled eggs.”

— Jan Karon

35. “Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at. Goethe.”

— Jan Karon

36. “How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, it’s irresistible. – C. S. Lewis.”

— Jan Karon

37. “A loved one from us has gone, A voice we love is stilled. A place is vacant in our home, Which never will be filled. Estelle Woodhouse, 1898-1987.”

— Jan Karon

38. “Knitting, he thought, was a comfort to the soul.”

— Jan Karon

39. “Your goodness to me has been overwhelming. How tender you are, though I am often as tough as gristle. How patiently you have loved me since you made up your mind to love me always.”

— Jan Karon

40. “Easter is never deserved.”

— Jan Karon

41. “Phillipians 4:13 for Pete’s sake!”

— Jan Karon

42. “Let’s just say that I was raised by my grandparents.”

— Jan Karon

43. “To see the world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower,’ ” he quoted from Blake. “ ‘Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour,’ ” she replied.”

— Jan Karon

44. “Her mom said they were to pray for the people her dad and his colleagues were treating, pray for his sound health and safekeeping, and trust God in everything. She knew such wisdom in her head, but complete trust was, as her mother said, ’yet to build a station in her heart and erect its flag of undisputed possession.”

— Jan Karon

45. “The waters hold all heaven within their heart.”

— Jan Karon

46. “He believed in Father Brad, who conceded with Goethe that ’correction is good, but encouragement is better.”

— Jan Karon

47. “There’s no other way I can think of to put it – but when you let him move into your life, the garbage moves out. The anger starts to go, and the resentment, and the fear.”

— Jan Karon

48. “Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself. – George Bernard Shaw.”

— Jan Karon

49. “All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art. JL Borges.”

— Jan Karon

50. “We are, finally, all wanderers in search of knowledge. Most of us hold the dream of becoming something better than we are, something larger, richer, in some way more important to the world and ourselves. Too often, the way taken is the wrong way, with too much emphasis on what we want to have, rather than what we wish to become.”

— Jan Karon