Richard Paul Evans

“Denial, perhaps, is a necessary human mechanism to cope with the heartaches of life. ”

“The human life cycle no less than evolves around the box; from the open-topped box called a bassinet, to the pine box we call a coffin, the box is our past and, just as assuredly, our future. It should not surprise us then that the lowly box plays such a significant role in the first Christmas story. For Christmas began in a humble, hay-filled box of splintered wood. The Magi, wise men who had traveled far to see the infant king, laid treasure-filled boxes at the feet of that holy child. And in the end, when He had ransomed our sins with His blood, the Lord of Christmas was laid down in a box of stone. How fitting that each Christmas season brightly wrapped boxes skirt the pine boughs of Christmas trees around the world. ”

“...for we are all amateurs at life, but if we do not focus too much on our mistakes, a miraculous picture emerges. And we learn that it's not the beauty of the image that warrants our gratitude--it's the chance to paint.”

“Forgiveness does not require us to close our eyes but rather to truly open them.”

“Small kindnesses often, unintentionally, produce the biggest payoffs.”

“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.”

“To choose the path is to choose the destination, but sometimes it seems that the path is under our feet even before we know we're walking.”

“It has been a mistake living my life in the past. One cannot ride a horse backwards and still hold its reins.”

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

“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.”

“Can you ever forgive me?I already have.How could you? I don't deserve it.That's what makes it love.”

“Regret is the most tiresome of companions.”

“Some people deal with their problems by talking them to death. In fact, some enjoy the execution so much they resurrect their problems just so they can kill them again.-Nathan Hurst”

“A man's worth isn't measured by a bank register or diploma... It's about integrity”

“It is a peculiar thing to believe that you know someone intimately only to find that you really do not. It is like finishing a book only to discover that you have missed several key chapters.THE LETTER Chapter 9 page 104”

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

“We carry around in our heads these pictures of what our lives are supposed to look like, painted by the brush of out intentions. It's the great, deep secret of humanity that in the end none of our lives look the way we thought they would. As much as we wish to believe otherwise, most of life is a reaction to circumstances.”

“Love is never convenient-and rarely painless”

“such fickle days of love when pain and ecstasy share the same hour”

“We spend our life building higher fences and stronger locks, when the gravest dangers are already inside”

“We all arrive on Earth with a round-trip ticket.”

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

“We are chained to that which we do not forgive”

“Magna est veritas, et praevalebit: truth is mighty, and will prevail”

“Chocolate is God's apology for brocolli”

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

“Sunsets, like childhood, are viewed with wonder not just because they are beautiful but because they are fleeting.”

“Books are the most tolerant of friends.”

“...even the most horribl e of nightmares is laced with the promise of dawn.”

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

“I’ve come to know that what we want in life is thegreatest indication of who we really are.”

“I have learned a great truth of life. We do not succeed in spite of our challenges anddifficulties, but rather, precisely because of them.”

“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.”

“There are moments, it would seem, that were created in cosmic theater where we aregiven strange and fantastic tests. In these times, we do not show who we are to God, for surely He must already know, but rather to ourselves.”

“Usually life’s greatest gifts come wrapped in adversity.”

“It is often during the worst of times that we see the best of humanity–awakeningwithin the most ordinary of us that which is most sublime. I do not believe that it is circumstancethat produces such greatness any more than it is the canvas that makes theartist. Adversity merely presents the surface on which we render our souls’ most exactinglikeness. It is in the darkest skies that stars are best seen.”

“I am not a believer in love at first sight. For love, in its truest form, is not the thingof starry-eyed or star-crossed lovers, it is far more organic, requiring nurturing and timeto fully bloom, and, as such, seen best not in its callow youth but in its wrinkled maturity.Like all living things, love, too, struggles against hardship, and in the process shedsits fatuous skin to expose one composed of more than just a storm of emotion–one of loyaltyand divine friendship. Agape. And though it may be temporarily blinded by adversity,it never gives in or up, holding tight to lofty ideals that transcend this earth andtime–while its counterfeit simply concludes it was mistaken and quickly runs off tofind the next real thing.”

“…Or he could choose life. At that pivotal moment, it occurred to him that with all hisschooling in theology he had, perhaps, missed the entire point of his studies, the verycrux of the gospel he had professed to believe. That the measure of a person’s heart, thebarometer of good or evil, was nothing more than the extent of their willingness tochoose life over death. That the path of God was, simply, the path of life, abundant andeternal. And this is where he failed, for to choose life is to choose sorrow as well as joy,pain as well as pleasure. When Hunter had buried Rachel, he buried along with her hisheart, lest it might heal and feel and grow again. And in so doing he had chosen morethan death, he had chosen damnation itself, for damnation is nothing more than to stopa thing in its eternal progression. In that first flight from West Chester he had run notonly from the horror and pain of death but from life itself.”

“That which we expect of life is indeed all that it ever can be.”

“From our first babblings to our last word,we make but one statement, and that is our life.”

“Life's greatest philosophy is not handed down in stoic texts and dusty tomes, but lived, in each breath and act of human compassion. For love has always demanded sacrifice, and no greater love is there than that for which our lives are traded. And in this great cause of spiritual evolution we are all called to be martyrs, to die each of us, in the quest of a higher realm and loftier ideals, that we may know God. And what if there is nothing else? What if all life ends in the silent void of death? Then is it all in vain? I think not, for love, for the sake of love, will always be enough. And if our lives are but a single flash in the dark hollow of eternity, then if, but for the briefest of moments, we shine - then how brilliantly our light has burned. And as starlight knows no boundary of space or time, so too, our illumination will shine forth throughout all eternity, for darkness has no power to quell such light. And this is a lesson we must all learn and take to heart - that all light is eternal and all love is light. And it must forever be so.”

“You want to know what hell is? What brimstone and burining really is?"Yes"Hell is the perfect recollection of every evil thing you've done in your life, every thoughtless word, every cruel, evil thought or action. It's knowing that you could have helped your brother and didn't. Hell is clarity, Bob. It's nothing more than clarity." He leaned forward as if to confide in me, his gaze intense. "Do you want to know what heaven is?"I was locked into his gaze. "Yes."His voice was barely above a whisper, "It's the same thing.”

“We all got things under our skin. Everybody does. Like a glass sliver. Can't see nothin' there, but it works its way in deeper and gets to festerin' and hurts so that we're ready to just cut the whole thing out.”

“Could it be that to truly love a thing is not to desire it, but to desire happiness for it?”

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