I'm not the first person to have said this - no writer ever feels that the execution of a book lives up to the idea for that book. The execution always falls short.

Quiet people have the loudest minds.

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.

The water was glassy and calm, still candy-colored in the afterglow of sunset.

A life without love is like a tree without fruit.

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

Outside, daylight was bleeding slowly toward dusk.

You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.

People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad.

The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there... and still on your feet.

The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.

A Godly mother's seed of faith yields a bounty of faithfulness.

Products are made in the factory, but brands are made in the mind

You become responsible for a long time for what you've tamed.

We got to push to give, and one life to live.

I think you can use fiction to get inside people's minds.

If there is a God, I want to see him. I don't want to just hear some holy roller shouting about him.

I see you got a crew cut...and the crew never came back!

You can't even see it. I'm the safest thing you'll ever find

I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute; but I know how to raise a small and obscure city to glory and greatness...whereto all kindreds of the earth will pilgrim.