One of the things I love about our source text as Christians, the Bible is that it teaches us not to avoid conflict. And it teaches us that before the fall of man, in Paradise, there was conflict. God wants conflict to be a part of your life.

There's a lot of letters, and a lot of people come say "hi" at book signings, but I'm amazed at how normal everybody is.

We don't think much about how our love stories will affect the world, but they do. Children learn what's worth living for and what's worth dying for by the stories they watch us live. I want to teach our children how to get scary close, and more, how to be brave. I want to teach them that love is worth what it costs.

I think it's very hard for us, for Christians, to understand that it's okay to read a book, for instance, on how to manage your time. There's nothing wrong with that.

I had some friends commenting me books, but mostly it was people I didn't know. But they're fans. They're fans of the books, so they have a working knowledge of how I write, and they know what they like and what they don't like. I'm really grateful for their feedback.

I could not have known then that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing.

Before I studied story, I was trying to write a novel, and it was terrible. It wasn't going anywhere, and I couldn't figure out what I was trying to do. It was really hard; much harder than I thought it was going to be. Now that I've studied story, I think I'd have a different approach and maybe I could actually get it done.