My agent and I put out my proposal one Thursday afternoon in August, 1998. Publishers started bidding immediately, and that process progressed for a few days.

This self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of humanness; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleaved from, and cast below, mankind.

People think I must have been turning cartwheels on the night I sealed the movie deal - which was only two days after sealing the book deal - but I was really quite terrified.

I think authors can get into trouble viewing the subject matter as their turf

It's easy to talk to a horse if you understand his language. Horses stay the same from the day they are born until the day they die. They are only changed by the way people treat them.

The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when their tormentors suffer.

For me, being a writer was never a choice. I was born one. All through my childhood I wrote short stories and stuffed them in drawers. I wrote on everything. I didn't do my homework so I could write

Without dignity, identity is erased. In its absence, men are defined not by themselves, but by their captors and the circumstances in which they are forced to live.

Without dignity, identity is erased.

I just thought I was empty and now I'm being filled...and I just wanted to keep being filled.

His books were the closest thing he had to furniture and he lived in them the way other men live in easy chairs.

Despite all of our flaws, God still loves us unconditionally. So why then should you dare to turn your back on loving your true positive self, unconditionally?

I'm just really thankful to have the chance to portray a character you don't see every day.

The first step toward finding God, Who is Truth, is to discover the truth about myself: and if I have been in error, this first step to truth is the discovery of my error.

Stop your grinnin and drop your linen

What cannot be talked about cannot be put to rest. And if it is not, the wounds will fester from generation to generation.

The more opportunities we have, the more likely we are to be able to handle the unexpected.

The mother tongue is propaganda.

We like to juxtapose our music with a more dour aesthetic.

I was brought up in Florida, so there isn't much difference between playing there and playing here. The climax are about the same.

Practical gifts are another great way to be thoughtful, and they work for anything from birthdays to dinner-party gifts.