You can't tell a good story without conflict - the story can't be beautiful or meaningful. We're taught to run from conflict, and it's robbing us of some really good stories.

And if these mountains had eyes, they would wake to find two strangers in their fences, standing in admiration as a breathing red pours its tinge upon earth's shore. These mountains, which have seen untold sunrises, long to thunder praise but stand reverent, silent so that man's weak praise should be given God's attention.

It was a haunting feeling, the sort of sensation you get when you wonder whether you are two people, the other of which does things you can't explain, bad and terrible things.

There's a genius part of you that wants to create. That part of you wants to talk to God. Get out of the way.

Self-discipline will never make us feel righteous or clean; accepting God's love will.

When you live on your own for a long time, however, your personality changes because you go so much into yourself you lose the ability to be social, to understand what is and isn't normal behavior. There is an entire world inside yourself, and if you let yourself, you can get so deep inside it you will forget the way to the surface. Other people keep our souls alive, just like food and water does with our body.

Half the time I pick up a book, that's what I'm trying to get.