Richard Paul Evans

“It is oftentimes a blessing to not know our limitations.It's the only way to accomplish the impossible.”

“If you passed me walking home from school, you probably wouldn't even notice me. That's because I'm just a kid like you.I go to school like you. I get bullied like you. Unlike you, I live in Idaho.Don't ask me what state Idaho is in––news flash––Idaho IS a state.~Michael Vey”

“I don't want to go to Peru."How do you know? You've never been there."I've never been to hell either and I'm pretty sure I don't want to go there.”

“there is no joy without gratitude”

“No,' he said, 'you only have to live long enough to inspire others to do great things.”

“I don't think it is as much a human foible as it is a human curse that we cannot understand the beauty of a thing until it is gone.”

“I hope you can someday forgive me.''I forgive you now.”

“Forgiveness is the key to the heart's shackles.”

“We can only lose what we have first claimed.”

“In the end, we all lose it. Remember that. In the end, we own nothing.”

“Sometimes, when tragedy strikes, people give up hope that they can expect anything more from life, when the real quest is finding out what life expects from them.”

“The sum of the day was truly greater than its parts.”

“Dwelling on him would make him a bigger part of my life than I want him to be.”

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

“In college I took a social psychology course, something I thought useful for a career in advertising. Psychologists tested the story of the Good Samaritan. What they learned gives us reason to pause. The greatest determinant of who stopped to help the stranger in need was not compassion, morality, or religious creed. It was those who had the time. Makes me wonder if I have time to do good. Apparently, Angel does.”

“Suffering ceases to be suffering when we form a clear picture of it.”

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

“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.”

“Nothing is more excruciating than waiting for the jury's verdict. Except, perhaps, hearing the jury's verdict.”

“You're lucky your mother died,' she said.I didn't like that. 'I'm lucky my mother died?'Between sobs she said, 'Your mother would have stayed if she could. My mother chose to leave me. She's still out there somewhere. I wish she had died instead.'I sat down next to her and put my arm around her. 'I'll never leave you.'She laid her head on my shoulder. 'I know.”

“There's a problem with marrying up. You always worry that someday they'll see through you and leave. Or, worse yet, someone better will come along and take her. In my case, it wasn't someone. And it wasn't something better.”

“Life has taught me that to fly, you must first accept the possibility of falling.”

“It is better to be loved by one person who knows your soul than millions who don't even know your phone number.”

“There are people I've yet to meet who are waiting for my path to intersect with theirs, so they can complete their own journeys. I don't know who or where they are, but I know for certain that they are waiting.”

“Leah taught me that the greatest secret of life is that we find exactly what we're looking for. In spite of what happens to us, ultimately we decide whether our lives are good or bad, ugly or beautiful.”

“The thing is, the only real sign of life is growth. And growth requires pain. So to choose life is to accept pain.”

“The first casualty of hitting rock bottom is vanity.”

“Deep in our hearts everyone walks free.”

“I believe that in spite of the chains we bind ourselves with, there's a primordial section of the human psyche that is still nomadic and still yearns to roam free.”

“Life is not yours to take.”

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

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

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

“We can deny reality, but we can't deny the consequences of denying reality.”

“The more someone assures you that everything is okay, the more you can be assured that it's not.”

“The reason we start things is rarely the reason we continue them.”

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

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

“. . .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.”

“I think the secret to a hoppy life is a selective memory. Remember what you are most grateful for and quickly forget what your not.”

“The truest grace is not to forgive, but to have never found fault.”

“The assumption of time is one of humanity's greatest follies. We tell ourselves that there's always tomorrow, when we can no more predict tomorrow than we can the weather. Procrastination is the thief of dreams.”

“Dance. Dance for the joy and breath of childhood. Dance for all children, including that child who is still somewhere entombed beneath the responsibility and skepticism of adulthood. Embrace the moment before it escapes from our grasp. For the only promise of childhood, of any childhood, is that it will someday end. And in the end, we must ask ourselves what we have given our children to take its place. And is it enough?”

“We love those whom we serve (p. 26)”

“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.”

“It was the first time that I had ever been romantically kissed. It was even better than the chocolate cake.”

“The universe is a trillion, trillion threads moving in seemingly unrelated directions. Yet when you look at them together, they create a remarkable tapestry.”

“The smells of Christmas are the smells of childhood”

“Nothing heals the soul like chocolate ... It's God's apology for broccoli.”

“...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”