I'm amazed at how much my writing is improved when I step away from the computer, even in small amounts. If I'm stuck, I vacuum the living room or walk the dog. I'm amazed at what comes out of that... We have to realize that part of the writing life where we're sitting down at the computer is harvesting the crops, but you have to have planted them and watered them and created fertile soil - and that's a life.

If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation.

How many people have damaged their own lives by mistaking enablement for grace?

People who live great stories know failure isn’t a judgment, it’s an education.

Telling the truth is the slow, mundane, difficult route to a meaningful life. Anything else is cheating.

If I use the Bible to prove I am right, I have yet to be humbled by the beautiful truths of the Bible.

If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation. If I got any comfort as I set out on my first story, it was that in nearly every story, the protagonist is transformed. He's a jerk at the beginning and nice at the end, or a coward at the beginning and brave at the end. If the character doesn't change, the story hasn't happened yet. And if story is derived from real life, if story is just condensed version of life then life itself may be designed to change us so that we evolve from one kind of person to another.