Here's a little tip for you. If you don't like being called a murderer, don't kill people.

Some people are little Chernobyls, shimmering with silent, spreading poison: get anywhere near them and every breath you take will wreck you from the inside out.

I wanted to tell her that being loved is a talent too, that it takes as much guts and as much work as loving; that some people, for whatever reason, never learn the knack

Her forehead was a maze of anxious little grooves, from a lifetime of wondering about whether everyone within range was OK.

A bore or an uggo might manage not to get up anyone's nose, but if a girl's got brains and looks and personality, she's going to piss someone off, somewhere along the way.

Don't you ever feel that - that you just need to get away? From everything? That it's all too much?

I hate nostalgia, it's laziness with prettier accessories.

We think about mortality so little, these days, except to flail hysterically at it with trendy forms of exercise and high-fiber cereals and nicotine patches.

The thing about being a mystery writer, what marks a mystery writer out from a chick lit author or historical fiction writer, is that you always find a mystery in every situation.

I don't do that kind of negativity. If you put your energy into thinking about how much the fall would hurt, you're already halfway down.

I had been right: freedom smelled like ozone and thunderstorms and gunpowder all at once, like snow and bonfires and cut grass, it tasted like seawater and oranges.

The future depends on what we do in the present.

The church is not a brick-and-mortar structure. The church is made of flesh & blood. Followers of #Christ are the church.

I thought I had nothing to be grateful for today, but then the universe became quiet a moment so I could hear my heart beat to the rhythm of my life.

No matter what trials we face, Christ never leaves us. He is with us every step of the way!

Don't be reluctant about putting on overalls!

Because I was born in the South, I'm a Southerner. If I had been born in the North, the West or the Central Plains, I would be just a human being.

How easy it is to destroy the past and how difficult to forget it.

I want to live with autonomy. That's the essence of sin.

Surrender . . .sacrificing my life or suffering in order to change what needs to be changed

You make kingdoms and castles on your own.