My books are inert as cordwood till a readers imagination ignites one and an old flame jumps to life.

To me, it's a great day every time I receive a letter from somebody who climbed inside one of my books, inhabited it for a while, learned a little something, and emerged grateful.

Music is just a word for something we love largely because it consists of things that words can't express. Likewise, the heart is just a word for something in us that music sometimes touches.

And so I learned what solitude really was. It was raw material - awesome, malleable,older than men or worlds or water. And it was merciless - for it let a man become precisely what he alone made of himself.

I'd taken a big fat crisis off my shoulders and loaded it all on Jesus, which seemed unfair in a way, but was exactly what the Bible recommended.

When experience flies into realms that language cannot touch, honesty demands beyond-language.

... the best way to strip the allure and dreaminess from a lifelong dream is, very often, simply to have it come true.