With blue vinyl-tile floor, pale-green wainscoating, pink walls, a yellow ceiling, and orange-and-white stork-patterned drapes, the expectant fathers' lounge churned with the negative energy of color overload. It would have served well as the nervous-making set for a nightmare about a children's-show host who led a secret life as an ax murderer. The chain-smoking clown didn't improve the ambience.

There's no use wasting are energy being afraid of the devils, demons and things that go bump in the night... Because ultimately we'll never encounter anything more terrifying than the monster among us. Hell is where we make it.

The opportunity to love a dog and to treat it with kindness is an opportunity for a lost and selfish heart to be redeemed. They are powerless and innocent, and it is how we treat the humblest among us that surely determines the fate of our souls

If you write with passion in your own style, you will make a place for yourself

If I drive myself to the brink of my ability, then I don't get stale or bored.

Every human being has appetites difficult to control but far fewer have humility, gentleness, and an awareness of their weaknesses.

Sometimes many publishers prefer that you write the same book every time, but I have a low boredom threshold so that isn't going to happen.