When you fly across the country in an airplane the country seems vast; but it isn't vast. It's all connected by roads one can ride a bike down. If you watch the news and there's a tragedy at a house in Kansas, that guy's driveway connects with yours, and you'd be surprised by how few roads it takes to get there.

All the trees are losing their leaves, and not one of them is worried.

I do not believe a person can take two issues from Scripture, those being abortion and gay marriage, and adhere to them as sins, then neglect much of the rest and call himself a fundamentalist or even a conservative. The person who believes the sum of his morality involves gay marriage and abortion alone, and neglects health care and world trade and the environment and loving his neighbor and feeding the poor is, by definition, a theological liberal, because he takes what he wants from Scripture and ignores the rest.

I have sometimes wondered if the greatest desire of man is to be known and loved anyway.

A story is based on what people think is important, so when we live a story, we are telling people around us what we think is important.

Every human being is searching for a deep sense of meaning, and yet we're all chasing success. We've confused one for the other.

All my books have been titled based on a piece of the prose from inside the book.