But sometimes imperfect tools lead us toward perfect ends.

Perfect, that's our plan then. But you'll have to give up being a priest first. I wouldn't want to just sit around whispering and sipping hot chocolate.

What matters is discovering myself under the veneer, under the layers that are wrapped around me. There are two 'yous'; there's 'you', the real you, and then there's the image.

The sun began to set behind Bethlehem and the beams were breaking through some white and gray clouds. There was a slight and beautiful chill from the autumn air. I gave thanks for that beautiful day and for the fact that the sun does not know Palestinian from Israeli, Christian from Muslim or Jew, and Asian from American or African, and I asked myself: If the sun shines on all of us as one, how much more does the sun's Creator see and love us all as one?

My research for 'Adam' affected me profoundly, particularly the research into evil's underbelly. We tend not to think about evil until it pokes its head out of the air about us and then it tends to scare us silly. As well it should.

...most men and women will yield to the strong currents sucking them into the seas of ruin. Only the strongest in mind and spirit will swim against that current.

For me, writing is an experience. It's an exercise in which I want to discover myself by taking my characters to the edges of human experience, to the edges of themselves and then, asking certain questions - about love, what does it mean to love? What's beauty? What is true beauty?