Facts, I feel, should be ready to yield to manipulation. But unfortunately they're a stubborn lot.

Children do not see themselves as shocking or surprising and do not want other people to do so.

Ah, gratitude, that's a terrible thing, a dangerous thing.

We never wholly shed anything that we have ever been.

Most of us think we've had more trouble than we deserve.

Passion out of passion's obstacles.

The Lord's mercy often rides to the door of our heart upon the black horse of affliction.

I am Tersa the Weaver, Tersa the Liar, Tersa the Fool.

Just maybe I was worthy of love.

I don't think silicone makes a girl good or bad.

Of course I didn't pioneer the use of food in fiction: it has been a standard literary device since Chaucer and Rabelais, who used food wonderfully as a metaphor for sensuality.

Perhaps the hardest thing I've learned, and still struggle with, is that I don't have to be finished in order to be whole.

Organized, yeah. And those who are so sure that their God is the right God that they believe it's ok to kill another person who doesn't believe in their God.

When even your fans are writing to tell you to get a life, you know you need to listen.

When I was writing 'The Abstinence Teacher,' I really tried to immerse myself in contemporary American evangelical culture.