Richard Paul Evans Quotes

The truest indication of gratitude is to return what you are grateful for.

Old friends are memories personified.

. . .and every native has a story of winter – stories that usually begin, You call this a storm? And grow in the telling like battle tales shared by graying war veterans. It’s a peculiar character flaw to those of us from cold climates that we feel superior to those who have the sense to live elsewhere.

As a boy I heard this story in church. A man was patching a pitched roof of a tall building when he began sliding off. As he neared the edge of the roof he prayed, "Save me, Lord, and I'll go to church every Sunday, I'll give up drinking, I'll be the best man this city has ever known." As he finished his prayer, a nail snagged onto his overalls and saved him. The man looked up to the sky and shouted, "Never mind, God. I took care of it myself." How true of us.

When I think of God I feel like an ant crawling into a computer.

Rarely do we invest the time to open the book of another's life. When we do, we are usually surprised to find its cover so misleading and its reviews so flawed.

Books are the most tolerant of friends.

It's our memories that make us who we are. Without them, we're nothing. If that means we have to hurt sometimes, it's worth it.

Everyone who got to where they are had to begin where they were.

We stone our prophets, then build monuments to them after they're gone.

The smells of Christmas are the smells of childhood [p. 53]

Usually life’s greatest gifts come wrapped in adversity.

We humans...are seriously flawed. The things that are the most necessary, the most critical to us, are the things we take most for granted. Air. Water. Love. If you have someone to love, you are lucky. If they love you back, you're blessed. And if you waste the time you have to love them, you're a fool. -The Christmas List- p. 296

"Wait and see" is no easier now than it was as a child.

The most important story we'll ever write in life is our own-not with ink, but with our daily choices.

There are two kinds of people. Those who climb mountains and those who sit in the shadow of the mountains and critique the climbers.

Mr. Dallstrom is a bald, scarecrow of a man with a poochy stomache. Think of a pregnant Abraham Lincoln.

We're all moons. Sometimes our dark sides overshadow our light.

I've yet to read a love story that compares with mine.

I've wondered why the famous congregate with each other. Perhaps it's to assure each other that they really are as important as they think they are.

It is in the dark times that the light of friendship shines brightest.

There are people who come into our lives as welcome as a cool breeze in summer- and last about as long.

I have come to believe that we do not walk alone in this life. There are others, fellow sojourners, whose journeys are interwoven with ours in seemingly random patterns, yet, in the end, have been carefully placed to reveal a remarkable tapestry. I believe God is the weaver at that loom.

Regret is the most tiresome of companions.

Feelings can be like wild animals-we underrate how fierce they are until we've opened their cage

So often the pain of our life is no more than a reminder to take our hand off the stove.

Love never gives in or up, holding tight to lofty ideals that transcend this earth and time, while its counterfeit simply concludes it was mistaken and quickly runs off to find the next real thing.

sometimes it's the fight that makes a thing worth having

Some people in this world have stopped looking for beauty, then wonder why their lives are so ugly. Don't be like them. The ability to appreciate beauty is of God. Especially in one another. Look for beauty in everyone you meet, and you'll find it. Everyone carries divinity within them. And everyone we meet has something to impart.

In your hurry to keep Christmas, you have forgotten Christmas. The truest gift of Christmas is the gift of self.

Love is never convenient-and rarely painless

Small kindnesses often, unintentionally, produce the biggest payoffs.

There are two kinds of suffering in this life. That which pursues us and that which we doggedly pursue.

We plan our lives in long, unbroken stretches that intersect our dreams the way highways connect the city dots on a road map. But in the end we learn that life is lived in the side roads, alleys, and detours.

Only those who never step, never stumble.

The greatest shackles we bear in thislife are those forged by our own fears

...the measure of life is revealed in the quality of our relationships: with God, our families, our fellow men." - A Perfect Day by Richard Paul Evans

The only way to remove pain from death is to remove love from life.

I've never understood why people said 'in your own words.' Who else's words would I use?

In the beginning, I had considered these stops on my journey as interruptions - but I'm coming to understand that perhaps these detours are my journey.

I absolutely love playing the game 'Risk.

The strength of a friendship can be measured by the weight of the burden it's willing to share. (If you want to test this just ask someone to help you move.)

Heroes rarely look the way we draw them in our minds: attractive, imposing figures with rippling muscles and strong chins. More times than not they are humble beings, small and flawed. It is only their spirits that are beautiful and strong.

The idea of being a novelist is really romantic, but it's kind of the same as being president of the United States - it's not gonna happen.

The kids who speak well, are articulate and intelligent, are all readers.

As we walk our individual life journeys, we pick up resentments and hurts, which attach themselves to our souls like burrs clinging to a hiker's socks. These stowaways may seem insignificant at first, but, over time, if we do not occasionally stop and shake them free, the accumulation becomes a burden to our souls.

It's almost as difficult to believe that someone with so many trials could harbor such hope, as that there are those with so much advantage who harbor such hopelessness.

I have Tourettes syndrome.