If I read a scary story in the newspaper, I find I'm haunted by it.

How much sweeter life would be if it all happened in reverse, if, after decades of disappointments, you finally arrived at an age when you had conceded nothing, when everything was possible.

I first started writing fiction in college because I was attracted to beautiful sentences. I loved to read them. I wanted to write them.

Fear is ... a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do.

Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next?

But the past is long, and the future is short.

It requires a certain kind of bravery, I suppose, to choose the status quo. There's a certain boldness to inaction.

We were a different kind of Christian, the quiet, reasonable kind, a breed embarrassed by the mention of miracles.

I can write all the way through the morning, when my mind is clear, and there are no distractions.

To some degree we all live with uncertainty. We have no control over the future. Yet we carry on, we persevere, because, I guess, it's the way we're made.

My goal was just to tell the unlikely story in a way that would feel as convincing as possible.

A mistake made with good in your heart is still a mistake, but it is one for which you must forgive yourself.

We have to bring back respect to law enforcement.

For in spite of the snapdragons and the duty millers and the cherry blossoms, it was always winter.

We don't consider ourselves equal opportunity anythings, because that's not - you know, that's the beauty of fake journalism. We don't have to - we travel in fake ethics.

There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home.

Oh no. I've just accidently paid a visit to the cakeshop of love. I haven't put back my Italian cakey, but I have accidentally picked up a Dave the Tart.

I randomly went to a casting session in my hometown in North Carolina, and the casting director introduced me to my manager. I really lucked into it!

There is only one sin - lack of love. Be brave, be capable of loving, even if love seems a terrible and treacherous thing. Find joy in love. Find joy in victory. Follow the dictates of your heart.

Lovers should guard their strangeness. If they forgive too much, all slides into confusion and meanness.

One day it's all going to be clear. It's all going to make sense. You're going to be able to say, "So that's why God allowed that in my life!" Until then, God wants you to trust him.