Search advanced search
 
Books
Search:
x dismiss this message

Did you know you can edit this page?

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
  • Rated 0 stars
Read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (2009) (edit title/settings)

What I Learned While Editing My Life

by Donald Miller (Author) (edit contributors)

Share this book on:
see page history

Description edit see section history

Full of beautiful, heart-wrenching, and hilarious stories, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details one man's opportunity to edit his life as if he were a character in a movie. Years after writing a best-selling memoir, Donald Miller went into a funk and spent months sleeping in and... read more

Characters/People edit see section history

Show all 21 characters
Popular Covers

Loading covers…

Choose your book’s cover

Quotes edit see section history

  • “"Right, Don," Steve said. "We are going to take the essence of you and find the story."..."I mean no disrespect," I said. "But what is wrong with the Don in the book?" The question came out of my mouth more personally than I wanted.Steve sat thoughtfully and collected his ideas...."In a pure story," he said like a professor, "there is purpose in every scene, in every line of dialogue. A movie is going somewhere."That last like rang in my ear like an accusation. I felt defensive, as though the scenes in my life weren'' going anywhere. I mean, I knew they weren't going anywhere, but it didn't seem okay for anybody else to say it...."What Steve is trying to say," Ben spoke up, reaching for the jar of olives, "is that your real life is boring.""Boring?" I blurted."Boring," Ben repeated."Boring," Steve reluctantly agreed.”
    Don, Chapter 4
  • “If you think about the stories you like most, they probably have lots of conflict....Somehow we realize that great stories are told in conflict, but we are unwilling to embrace the potential greatness of the story we are actually in. We think God is unjust, rather than a master storyteller.”
    Don, Chapter 6
  • “If I learned anything from thinking about my father, it's that there is a force in this world that doesn't want us to live good stories. It doesn't want us to face or issue, to face our fears and bring something beautiful into the world. I guess that I am saying is, I believe God wants us to create beautiful stories, and whatever it is that isn't God wants us to create meaningless stories, teaching the people around us that life just isn't worth living.”
    Don, Chapter 20
  • “If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation.”
    Don, Chaper 12
  • “I thought about heaven, about how if we were shooting a movie about heaven, at the airport, we would want to shoot it there, and how in the movie, people would be arriving from earth and other planets, and when the angels picked us up, they'd put us in their cars and drive a million miles for a thousand years, and it would be miserable until you got to where you were supposed to stay, where you would see your family and the girlfriend you had in the second grade, the girl you always believed was the only one who really loved you.With the city covered in snow, I felt like I was arriving along with my guest. I felt like we were about to explore my same old places in a way that might make them feel new.”
    Don, Chapter 2
  • “I feel written. My skin feels written, and my desires feel written...It feels literary, doesn't it, as if we are characters in books.I believe there is a writer outside ourselves, plotting a better story for us, interacting with us, even, and whispering a better story into our consciousness.”
    Don, Chapter 15
  • “I don't know why we need stories, but we always have. I'd say it's just that we like them, that they're entertaining, but it's more than that. It's a thing in us that empties like a stomach and then needs to be filled again.”
    Don, Chapter 14
  • “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
  • “Somehow we realize that great stories are told in conflict, but we are unwilling to embrace the potential greatness in the story we are actually in. We think God is unjust, rather than a master storyteller.”
    Donald Miller
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • 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.
    Highlighted by 525 Kindle customers
  • But 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.
    Highlighted by 454 Kindle customers
  • 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.
    Highlighted by 451 Kindle customers
  • It wasn’t necessary to win for the story to be great, it was only necessary to sacrifice everything.
    Highlighted by 408 Kindle customers
  • I’ve wondered, though, if one of the reasons we fail to acknowledge the brilliance of life is because we don’t want the responsibility inherent in the acknowledgment. We don’t want to be characters in a story because characters have to move and breathe and face conflict with courage. And if life isn’t remarkable, then we don’t have to do any of that; we can be unwilling victims rather than grateful participants.
    Highlighted by 377 Kindle customers
  • Here’s the truth about telling stories with your life. It’s going to sound like a great idea, and you are going to get excited about it, and then when it comes time to do the work, you’re not going to want to do it. It’s like that with writing books, and it’s like that with life. People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen. But joy costs pain.
    Highlighted by 375 Kindle customers
  • And once you know what it takes to live a better story, you don’t have a choice. Not living a better story would be like deciding to die, deciding to walk around numb until you die, and it’s not natural to want to die.
    Highlighted by 357 Kindle customers
  • You get a feeling when you look back on life that that’s all God really wants from us, to live inside a body he made and enjoy the story and bond with us through the experience.
    Highlighted by 329 Kindle customers
  • 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.
    Highlighted by 324 Kindle customers
  • When we watch the news, we grieve all of this, but when we go to the movies, we want more of it. Somehow we realize that great stories are told in conflict, but we are unwilling to embrace the potential greatness of the story we are actually in. We think God is unjust, rather than a master storyteller.
    Highlighted by 311 Kindle customers
Show all 19 quotes from this book

First Sentence edit see section history

The saddest thing about life is you don't remember half of it.

Table of Contents edit see section history

I. Exposition
1. Random Scenes
2. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
3. They Fell Like Feathers
4. My Real Life Was Boring
5. Flesh and Soul Better
6. My Uncle's Funeral and a Wedding
7. Going to See the Professor
8. The Elements of a Meaningful Life
9. How Jason Saved His Family

II. A Character
10. Writing the World
11. Imperfect is Perfect
12. You'll Be Different at the End
13. A Character Is What He Does
14. Saving the Cat
15. Listen to Your Writer
16. Something on the Page

III. A Character Who Wants Something
17. How to Make Yourself Write a Better Story
18. An Inciting Incident
19. Pointing Toward the Horizon
20. Negative Turns
21. A Good Story, Hijacked
22. A Practice Story
23. A Positive Turn
24. Meeting Bob

IV. A Character Who Wants Something and Overcomes Conflict
25. A Better Story
26. The Thing About a Crossing
27. The Pain Will Bind Us
28. A Tree in a Story About a Forest
29. The Reason God Hasn't Fixed You Yet
30. Great Stories Have Memorable Scenes

V. A Character Who Wants Something and Overcomes Conflict to Get It
31. Squeezing the Cat
32. The Beauty of a Tragedy
33. All You Have to Do Is Try
34. To Speak Something into Nothing
35. Summer Snow in Delaware
36. Where Once There Was Nothing

Afterword

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Donald Miller (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Country: United States
Publication Date: 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7852-1306-2
Page Count: 250

Classification edit see section history

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Reading Level: Adults

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years is an excellent read which provides interesting insights on the way to live one's life intentionally, though it wouldn't be very helpful for younger readers.

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • Blue Like Jazz
  • Waking the Dead

We’re hiding the errata, books that influenced this book, books influenced by this book, books that cite this book and books cited by this book sections. If you would like to add content to them, you must first make them visible.

Gillian C

You were just viewing this book on Gillian C’s shelf.
(see review)

 

© 2006-2013 Shelfari | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy

Close