Because of her singing they all went away feeling moved, feeling comforted, feeling, perhaps, the slightest tremors of faith.

Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.

Part of it is living in Tennessee. I'm so out of the loop. And as a person, I'm out of the loop. I'm oblivious by nature.

Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.

No matter how much we love a book, the experience of reading it isn't complete until we can give it to someone who will love it as much as we do

Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.

You are always someones favorite unfolding story

Just because things hadn't gone the way I had planned didn't necessarily mean they had gone wrong.

I can write for any magazine now, in any voice. I can do it in two hours, I could do it in my sleep, it's like writing a grocery list.

There can be something cruel about people who have had good fortune. They equate it with personal goodness.

Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined.

Only through the conversion of time can greatness be bought.

Every week a tsunami rips through poor towns and villages all over the world ... That tsunami is hunger.

When you crash into the living God, the encounter is certain to renovate every square inch of your life's boat.

I don't know karate, but I know crazy.

Your future and mine are determined by this one thing: seeking after the Lord.

Perfect happiness is knowing that everyone I love is healthy, safe, and content.

As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions.

You don't bite the women of other males.

There is but a plank between a sailor and eternity.