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Everybody Wants To Be Somebody Fancy. Even If They're Shy.
-Donald Miller
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Everybody Wants To Be

Donald Miller
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Everybody Wants To Be Somebody Fancy. Even If They're Shy.

Understanding the Quote: "everybody wants to be somebody fancy. even if they're shy...."

This quote by Donald Miller reflects deeply on the theme of fancy. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Fancy, Shy, Want, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Donald Miller interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Donald Miller

Donald Miller is celebrated for insightful thoughts on fancy and shy. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 50269
Topic
Fancy
Shy
Want
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Believe
Love Is
People Love To Have Lived A Great Story, But Few People Like The Work It Takes To Make It Happen.
People
Stories
Working It
Today I Wonder Why It Is God Refers To Himself As 'father' At All. This, To Me, In Light Of The Earthly Representation Of The Role, Seems A Marketing Mistake.
Father
Mistake
Light
Most Great Art Is Freedom Within Form. Without Form, We Are Amateurs, Without Freedom, We Are Robots.
Art
Robots
Form
Some People Skip Through Life. Others Are Dragged Through It. I Sometimes Wonder If We Are Moving Through Time, Or Whether Time Is Moving Through Us. Light, Unlike Anything Else In The Universe Is Not Effected By Time. Light Exists Outside Of Time.. It Is Still A Mystery To Physicists.
Moving
Light
People
Many Of Our Attempts To Understand Christian Faith Have Only Cheapened It. I Can No More Understand The Totality Of God Than The Pancake I Made For Breakfast Understands The Complexity Of Me. The Little We Do Understand, That Grain Of Sand Our Minds Are Capable Of Grasping, Those Ideas Such As God Is Good, God Feels, God Loves, God Knows All, Are Enough To Keep Our Hearts Dwelling On His Majesty And Otherness Forever.
Christian
Heart
Ideas
I Need For There To Be Something Bigger Than Me. I Need Someone To Put Awe Inside Me; I Need To Come Second To Someone Who Has Everything Figured Out.
Needs
Bigger
Awe
I Started Storyline After I'd Accomplished All My Goals And Still Wasn't Happy. I'd Become A New York Times Bestselling Author, Which Was My Goal From High School, And Yet I Was Less Happy After Accomplishing My Goals Than I Was Before.
New York
School
Goal
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.
Love Is
Order
Voice
True Intimacy, The Exchange Of Affection Between Two People Who Are Not Lying, Is Transforming.
Lying
Two
People
All The Trees Are Losing Their Leaves, And Not One Of Them Is Worried.
Tree
Losing
Worried
When I Walked Into The Christian Section Of A Bookstore, The Message Was Clear: Faith Is Something You Do Alone. Rick Does Not Have Much Tolerance For People Living Alone. He's Like Bill Clinton In That He Feels Everyone's Pain. If Rick Thinks Somebody Is Lonely, He Can't Sleep At Night. He Wants Us All To Live With Each Other And Play Nice So He Can Get Some Rest. Tortured Soul.
Christian
Lonely
Pain
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.
Worship
Glory
Artwork
I Don't Read A Lot Of Inspirational Books For Life. But For Writing, I Think The Two Best Books Are The War Of Art And William Zinsser's On Writing Well. I Read A Lot Of Classics.
Art
War
Book
Sometimes I Wish I Could Go Back In Time, Sit Down With Myself And Explain That Things Were Going To Be Okay, That Everybody Loses Ground Sometimes And It Doesn’t Mean Anything. It’s The Way Life Works. This Is Hard To Understand In The Moment. You Get To Thinking About The Girl Who Rejected You, The Job You Got Fired From, The Test You Failed, And You Lose Sight Of The Big Picture — The Fact That Life Has A Beautiful Way Of Remaking Itself Every Few Weeks.
Beautiful
Girl
Jobs
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.
Thinking
Creative
Important
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.
Girl
Regret
Thinking
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.
Christian
Fall
Men
I Know, From The Three Visits I Made To Him, The Blended Composite Of Love And Fear That Exists Only In A Boy's Notion Of His Father.
Fear
Father
Boys
There Are About 360,000 Churches In America, So We Could Mentor A Million Kids Within A Short Period Of Time If Everyone Signed On, Which, Of Course, Is A Pipedream, But We're Going To Reach Toward That.
Kids
America
Mentor
I Don't Find Anyone More Noble Than Jesus.
Jesus
Noble
Be Encouraged. Your Heart Is Writing A Poem On The World And It's Being Turned Into A Thousand Songs.
Song
Writing
Heart
If What You Are Doing Is Important, You Will Encounter Resistance. If What You Are Doing Isn't Important It Will Be Easy.
Important
Encounters
Resistance
And I Found Jesus Very Disturbing, Very Straightforward. He Wasn't Diplomatic, And Yet I Felt Like If I Met Him, He Would Really Like Me. Don, I Can't Explain How Freeing That Was, To Realize That If I Met Jesus, He Would Like Me. I Never Felt Like That About Some Of The Christians On The Radio. I Always Thought If I Met Those People They Would Yell At Me. But It Wasn't Like That With Jesus.
Christian
Jesus
People
I Had Some Friends Commenting Me Books, But Mostly It Was People I Didn't Know. But They're Fans. They're Fans Of The Books, So They Have A Working Knowledge Of How I Write, And They Know What They Like And What They Don't Like. I'm Really Grateful For Their Feedback.
Book
Grateful
Writing
Your Life Is A Blank Page. You Write On It.
Writing
Pages
Life Is
Half The Time I Pick Up A Book, That's What I'm Trying To Get.
Book
Trying
Half
When We Talk About The Decline Of The American Family, I Think We Have To Go Back To The Industrial Revolution.
Thinking
Revolution
Decline
The Early Bird Catches The Worm. But I Have Never Been One For Worms. I Am Not Sure What The Late Bird Catches, But I Will Feast With Him Today. Probably Porridge.
Bird
Today
Porridge
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.
Believe
Tree
Arrogant
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.
Beautiful
Taken
People
The Times In My Life When I Have Been Most Happy Haven't Been The Times When I Have Had The Most Money Or The Most Freedom Or The Most Anything, But Rather When I've Been In Love Or In Community Or Right With People.
People
Community
Been In Love
I Think It's Very Hard For Us, For Christians, To Understand That It's Okay To Read A Book, For Instance, On How To Manage Your Time. There's Nothing Wrong With That.
Christian
Book
Thinking
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.
Thinking
People
Who God Is
We Don't Think Much About How Our Love Stories Will Affect The World, But They Do. Children Learn What's Worth Living For And What's Worth Dying For By The Stories They Watch Us Live. I Want To Teach Our Children How To Get Scary Close, And More, How To Be Brave. I Want To Teach Them That Love Is Worth What It Costs.
Children
Love Is
Thinking
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.
Things In Life
Being Free
Needs
The Economy Is Turning Around, So That's Going To Help A Little Bit.
Littles
Helping
Economy
When You Stop Expecting People To Be Perfect, You Can Like Them For Who They Are.
Love
Life
Relationship
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."
Jobs
Commitment
Eye
You Can't Tell A Good Story Without Conflict - The Story Can't Be Beautiful Or Meaningful. We're Taught To Run From Conflict, And It's Robbing Us Of Some Really Good Stories.
Beautiful
Meaningful
Running
My Most Recent Faith Struggle Is Not One Of Intellect. I Don’t Really Do That Anymore. Sooner Or Later You Just Figure Out There Are Some Guys Who Don’t Believe In God And They Can Prove He Doesn't Exist, And There Are Some Other Guys Who Do Believe In God And They Can Prove He Does Exist, And The Argument Stopped Being About God A Long Time Ago And Now It’s About Who Is Smarter, And Honestly I Don’t Care.
Believe
Struggle
Long
...i Want My Spirituality To Rid Me Of Hate, Not Give Me Reason For It.
Hate
Giving
Want
Being A Christian Is More Like Falling In Love Than Understanding A Series Of Ideas.
Christian
Falling In Love
Ideas
Before I Studied Story, I Was Trying To Write A Novel, And It Was Terrible. It Wasn't Going Anywhere, And I Couldn't Figure Out What I Was Trying To Do. It Was Really Hard; Much Harder Than I Thought It Was Going To Be. Now That I've Studied Story, I Think I'd Have A Different Approach And Maybe I Could Actually Get It Done.
Writing
Thinking
Trying
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.
Confused
Chasing
Humans
Sunday Morning Church Service Is Not An Enormous Priority; Spending Time With Other Believers Is.
Morning
Sunday
Church Service
There Is A Time When Every Person Who Encounters Jesus, Who Believes Jesus Is The Son Of God, Decides That They Will Spend Their Life Following Him. Some People, Like The Apostle Paul, Make This Decision The Minute They Meet Him, The Minute They Become A Christian. Others, Like The Apostle Peter, Endure Years Of Half-hearted Commitment And Spiritual Confusion Before Leaping In With All Their Passion. Still Others May Enjoy Some Benefits Of God's Love And Grace Without Entering Into The True Joy Of A Marriage With Their Maker.
Christian
Spiritual
Jesus
When One Of My Friends Becomes A Christian, Which Happens About Every 10 Years Because I Am A Sheep About Sharing My Faith, The Experience Is Euphoric. I See In Their Eyes The Trueness Of The Story.
Christian
Eye
Sheep
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.
Jesus
Believe
People
You're Always Weighing Whether You Should Be That Accessible Or Not, But My Personality Is Naturally Just To Throw It All Out There, So I'm Much More Comfortable With Doing Thatmy Personality Is Naturally Just To Throw It All Out There, So I'm Much More Comfortable With Doing That.
Personality
Should
Weighing
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.
Responsibility
Giving
Want
I Can't Do It. It Would Be Like, Say, Trying To Fall In Love With Somebody, Or Trying To Convince Yourself That Your Favorite Food Is Pancakes. You Don't Decide Those Things, They Just Happen To You. If God Is Real, He Needs To Happen To Me.
Falling In Love
Real
Trying
Christ, In Short, Asks Us To Give Everything, All Our False Redemption In The Lifeboat, All Our False Ideas About Who God Is, All Our Trust In Something Other Than God To Redeem Us. In So Doing, We Die To Our Broken Natures In Exchange For His Perfect Nature, And Find Unification With Him That Will Allow God To See Us As One.
Ideas
Broken
Giving
It Wasn't Necessary To Win For The Story To Be Great, It Was Only Necessary To Sacrifice Everything.
Sacrifice
Winning
Stories
There Are Things You Cannot Understand, And You Must Learn To Live With This. Not Only Must You Learn To Live With This, You Must Learn To Enjoy This.
Enjoy
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.
Order
Comfort
Want
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.
Cells
Hair
Skins
As A Human, I Am Flawed In That It Is Difficult For Me To Consider Others Before Myself. It Feels Like I Have To Fight Against This Force, This Current Within Me That, More Often Than Not, Wants To Avoid Serious Issues And Please Myself, Buy Things For Myself, Feed Myself, Entertain Myself, And All Of That.
Fighting
Issues
Want
We Have To Have Positive Male Role Models.
Role Models
Males
Roles
It Is Hard For Us To Admit We Have A Sin Nature Because We Live In This System Of Checks And Balances. If We Get Caught, We Will Be Punished. But That Doesn't Make Us Good People; It Only Makes Us Subdued. Just Think About The Congress And Senate And Even The President. The Genius Of The American System Is Not Freedom; The Genius Of The American System Is Checks And Balances. Nobody Gets All The Power. Everybody Is Watching Everybody Else. It Is As If The Founding Fathers Knew, Intrinsically, That The Soul Of Man, Unwatched, Is Perverse.
Father
Men
Thinking
And There Is Something Profoundly Humbling About Knowing God. I’m Not Talking About The Trinket God Or The Genie-in-a-lamp God. I Mean The God Who Invented The Tree In My Front Yard, The Beauty Of My Sweetheart, The Taste Of A Blueberry, The Violence Of A River At Flood. There Are A Lot Of Religious Trends That Would Have Us Controlling God, Telling Us That If We Do This That And The Other, God Will Jump Through Our Hoops Like A Monkey. But This Other God, This Real God, Is Awesome And Strong, All-encompassing And Passionate, And For Reasons I Will Never Understand, He Wants To Father Us.
Religious
Strong
Father
The Mountains Themselves Call Us Into Greater Stories.
Mountain
Stories
Greater
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.
Nature
Eye
Men
God Doesn't Give Us Crying, Pooping Children Because He Wants To Advance Our Careers.
Children
Careers
Giving
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.
Meaningful
Jobs
Book
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.
Art
People
Batteries
Self-discipline Will Never Make Us Feel Righteous Or Clean; Accepting God's Love Will.
Self
Accepting God
Discipline
One Of The Things I Associate With God Is A Sunrise. How Many Sunrises Have You Missed Over The Years, And God Created That?
Years
Sunrise
Associates
I Could Not Have Known Then That Everybody, Every Person, Has To Leave, Has To Change Like Seasons; They Have To Or They Die. The Seasons Remind Me That I Must Keep Changing.
Persons
Dies
Seasons
The Downside Of Being A Writer Is You Get Plenty Of Time To Overthink Your Life.
Plenty
What We Really Need Is Somebody Who Loves Us So Much We Don’t Worry About Death, Or About [anything For That Matter]… We Need This; We Need This So We Can Love Other People Purely And Not For Selfish Gain, We Need This So We Can See Everybody As Equals, We Need This So Our Relationships Can Be Sincere, We Need This So We Can Stop Kicking Ourselves Around, We Need This So We Can Lose All Self-awareness And Find Ourselves For The First Time, Not By Realizing Some Dream, But By Being Told Who We Are By The Only Being Who Has The Authority To Know, By That I Mean The Creator.
Dream
Selfish
Mean
There Is Something Beautiful About A Billion Stars Held Steady By A God Who Knows What He Is Doing.
Beautiful
Stars
Billions
The Greatest Stories Go To Those Who Don’t Give In To Fear.
Giving
Stories
Manipulative
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.
Teacher
Children
School
Sometimes You Have To Watch Somebody Love Something Before You Can Love It Yourself.
Watches
Sometimes
I Believe The Greatest Trick Of The Devil Is Not To Get Us Into Some Sort Of Evil But Rather Have Us Wasting Time. This Is Why The Devil Tries So Hard To Get Christians To Be Religious. If He Can Sink A Man's Mind Into Habit, He Will Prevent His Heart From Engaging God. I Was Into Habit.
Christian
Religious
Believe
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.
Lonely
Book
People
I Want To Start Replacing My “fix” Response With An “enjoy” Response And Just Let People Be Themselves.
People
Want
Enjoy
They Are Lonely. I'm Not Talking About Lonely For A Lover Or A Friend. I Mean Lonely In The Universal Sense, Lonely Inside The Understanding That We Are Tiny People On A Tiny Little Earth Suspended In An Endless Void That Echoes Past Stars And Stars Of Stars.
Lonely
Stars
Mean
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.
Together
Stories
Taste
I Used Love Like Money, But Love Doesn't Work Like Money. It Is Not A Commodity. When We Barter With It, We All Lose. When The Church Does Not Love It's Enemies, It Fuels Their Rage. It Makes Them Hate Us More.
Hate
Enemy
Religion
It Blew My Mind That What I Was Thinking Was Actually Applicable To People's Lives, And It Certainly Revolutionized Family.
Thinking
People
Mind
Imagine, A Being With A Mind As Great As God's, With Feet Like Trees And A Voice Like Rushing Wind, Telling You That You Are His Cherished Creation.
Wind
Voice
Rushing
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