There are about 360,000 churches in America, so we could mentor a million kids within a short period of time if everyone signed on, which, of course, is a pipedream, but we're going to reach toward that.

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

Flattery has a short battery life, but reminding people they are amazing and precious and wanted and works of art can truly change their lives.

Every day you live is a page. Every year, a chapter. Your life, a book. What is it about?

I fell in love with books. Some people find beauty in music, some in painting, some in landscape, but I find it in words. By beauty, I mean the feeling you have suddenly glimpsed another world, or looked into a portal that reveals a kind of magic or romance out of which the world has been constructed, a feeling there is something more than the mundane, and a reason for our plodding.

But the people who took the bus didn't experience the city as we experienced the city. The pain made the city more beautiful. The story made us different characters than we would have been if we had skipped the story and showed up at the ending an easier way.

People want to join a great story. If you want to lead, tell one with your life.