Ted Dekker

“Another world. Another life. And for me it was much longer than five measly years. A world with more darkness and less hope than I care to remember. Bleak and starless, full of diseased men. It's inside them there. In some ways it makes it worse. You don't know who's diseased and who isn't. You don't know when you've become a Scab.”

“And then...And then Thomas Hunter dreamed, and the world would never be the same.”

“The Beatles insisted he let it be, let it be. Stephen ejected the tape from his eight-track and threw it on the floor of the passenger seat. Whispered words of wisdom, please. They had no idea.”

“Do you know what hope and fear have in common?... They both hold great power. But that power is dependent on both fear and hope together. Think about it. Without the fear of something terrible, you cannot have the hope that it won't happen, you see? Without having hope for something wonderful, you can't have any fear of losing it. They work together, the two most powerful forces we possess.”

“What a terrible thing it is for children to see death, you say. We have it all wrong. If you make a child terrified of death, he won't embrace it so easily. And death must be embraced if you wish to follow Christ. Listen to His teaching. 'Unless you become like a child...and unless you take up your cross daily, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.' One is not valuable without the other. Janjic Jovic, The Dance of the Dead, 1959”

“Pape called Basil his sanctuary. In truth we all exist in our own sanctuaries-but I don't mean cathedrals or prisons. I'm talking about our hearts and minds, which imprison us in anxiety, dear, insecurity, anger and other forms of misery. The walls & bars that keep most in a constant state of suffering are thoughts and emotions, not concrete & steel. It's a disease. Insanity. Most are afflicted by it, regardless of which side of the law they find themselves on or where they lay their heads at night. To be free of this, Renee, is to be free indeed.”

“It is. And yet so few really are free. Nearly all people live in prisons of their own making, regardless of their faith, creed, sex or race.”

“Because she, too, was the Dark One, wasn't she? They all were, as much as they were all Forest Dwellers, without Elyon's cleansing waters. Yet they were chosen. It was up to them to follow either the one who had made them dark, or the one who had chosen each of them. Teeleh or Elyon.”

“People reveal their true character when they're off center.”

“Never mistake a woman as an opportunity for bliss.”

“You want to forget your pain. I mean to tell you that doing that will only cause you more hurt. - Khai”

“It's rude to run off a guest.It's rude to wear out your welcome.”

“The power of belief alone could change the course of history.”

“Women could be quite crafty, he knew that much. His father said it often. Smarter than men, too, most of the time. You had to know your way around if you wanted to fall in love with a woman.”

“That was the advantage of a young mind--believing was easier.”

“He plunged beneath the surface and knew that these were Elyon's waters, and his lake had no bottom.”

“But aren't lovers always tempted to find another? You humans are lovers, yes? So you have this awful tendency to reject him who first loved you and follow after the intoxicating scents.”

“...I once thought I defeated the evil in my heart. I learned something: We can face our demons, burn them up, stomp them into the ground. I turned mine to ashes. But even if you destroy the evidence of evil, you can't heal your heart. Not by yourself.”

“We become so used to the familiar that we begin to doubt the unfamiliar, until our eyes are opened and we see.”

“Only a woman could make so much out of so little. Give them a single fact and they'd fashion it into a story before taking a single breath.”

“What was once obvious to them was no longer quite as obvious. Why was it that humans lost sight of truth so quickly?”

“Everyone wanted to create his own history. There was nothing as powerful as the written word; history had taught them all that much.”

“My beloved, you have chosen me. You have been courted by my adversary, and you have chosen me. You have answered my call to the Circle, and today I call you my bride.”

“A woman needs what a woman needs.”

“Tears flooded her eyes and her heart beat heavily, but she knew it would be all right, because she knew that in the end the kind of power that was in these Books would never let her down.”

“Your lives have always been about the Great Romance, and in the days to come you will understand that like never before. Your love will be tested. Others will join you. Some will leave the circle. Some will die. All of you will suffer. The Horde will hate you because their hearts have been stolen and their eyes have been blinded by the Shataiki. But if you keep your eyes on me until the end...the lake will seem tame compared to what awaits us.”

“Elyon was restoring the Great Romance. Teeleh had stolen his first love, but now Justin had reclaimed her. The price had been his own life. He'd taken her disease on himself and he'd drowned with it, inviting them to embrace his invitation to the Romance by following him into the lake to drown with him. To live as his bride!”

“The Great Romance is for you. If only one of you would have followed me, the heavens would not have been able to contain my cries of joy.”

“They were truly new people. No longer Forest People, certainly not the Horde. They were outcasts. They were the chosen. Those who had died. Those who lived.”

“We call our religion the Great Romance, but really it feels more like a list of rules than anything similar to the Great Romance we once had. But now I think the knowledge of Elyon is starting to work its way into me again--in both realities...If Elyon's real there, surely God must be real here.”

“Billos ran. He tore down the shore, bounded up on the rock, and dove into the air. The warm water engulfed him. A boiling heat knocked the wind from his lungs. The shock alone might kill him. But it was pleasure that surged through his body, not pain. The sensations coursed through his bones in great unrelenting waves. Elyon. How he was certain, he did not know. But he knew. Elyon was in this lake with him. Billos opened his eyes. Gold light drifted by. He lost all sense of direction. The water pressed in on every inch of his body, as intense as any acid, but one that burned with pleasure instead of pain. He sank into the water, opened his mouth and laughed. He wanted more, much more. He wanted to suck the water in and drink it. Without thinking, he did just that. The liquid hit his lungs. Billos pulled up, panicked. He tried to hack the water from his lungs, but inhaled more instead. No pain. He carefully sucked more water and breathed it out slowly. Then again, deep and hard. Out with a soft whoosh. He was breathing the water! Billos shrieked with laughter. He swam into the lake, deeper and deeper. The power contained in this lake was far greater than anything he'd ever imagined. "I made this, Billos." Billos whipped his body around, searching for the words' source. "Elyon?" His voice was muffled, hardly a voice at all. "Do you like it?" "Yes!" Billos said. He might have spoken; he might have shouted--he didn't know. He only knew that his whole body screamed it. Billos looked around. "Elyon?" "Why do you doubt me, Billos?" In that single moment the full weight of Billos's foolishness crashed on him like a sledgehammer. "I see you, Billos." "I made you." "I love you." The words crashed over him, reaching into the deepest folds of his flesh, caressing each hidden synapse, flowing through every vein, as though he had been given a transfusion. "I choose you, Billos." Billos began to weep. The feeling was more intense than any pain he had ever felt. The current pulled at him, tugging him up through the colors. His body trembled with pleasure. He wanted to speak, to yell, to tell the whole world that he was the most fortunate person in the universe. That he was loved by Elyon. Elyon himself. "Never leave me, Billos." "Never! I will never leave you." The current pushed him through the water and then above the surface not ten meters from the shore. He stood on the sandy bottom. For a moment he had such clarity of mind that he was sure he could understand the very fabric of space if he put his mind to it. He was chosen. He was loved.”

“Austin cleared his throat. Given the choice between being with books or people, he'd always choose books. You could always tell what a book thought without needing to have a confrontation. People, on the other hand, defensively clung to their need to be right no matter how flawed their thinking.”

“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?”

“This will wreck you! Today, treat everyone you meet as if they're going to be dead by midnight. extend all the kindness and understanding you can, and do it with no thought of any reward.”

“You'll have to learn to control your emotions. They're new, like achild's now, bursting with passion. Never let them fade, or part of you will die. But they cal also destroy you. Hold them dear, but don't let them take hold of you.”

“Where is God? Where can I find him?" we ask. We don't realize that's like a fish swimming frantically through the ocean in search OF the ocean”

“They all seemed to function in it, but to say they controlled it would be wrong...The chaos controlled them.”

“We've stepped off the cliff and are falling into madness.”

“This was the Great Romance. To love at any cost.”

“How can there be love without a true choice? Would you suggest that man be stripped of the capacity to love?”

“Some would say the Creator is a lamb. Some would say he's a lion. Some would say both. The fact is, he is neither a lamb nor a lion. These are fiction. Metaphors. Yet the Creator is both a lamb and a lion. These are both truths.”

“And to understand how love unfolds, you must understand how Elyon loves.”

“The point is, we were created to love beauty. We love beauty because Elyon loves beauty. We love song because Elyon loves song. We love love because Elyon loves love. And we love to be loved because Elyon loves to be loved. In all these ways we are like Elyon. In one way or another, everything we do is tied to this unfolding story of love between us and Elyon.”

“Not wonderful that you've forgotten, mind you. Wonderful that you have so much to discover.”

“These were his people--a strange thought. Maybe not his very own people, as in father, mother, brother, sister, but people just like him. He was lost but not so lost after all.”

“Not evil. Not any more evil than the colored trees are good.Evil and good reside in the heart, not in trees and water.”

“Adrenaline dulls reason; panic kills it.”

“When did speaking your beliefs become synonymous with forcing them upon others?”

“You give people a little money and they lose all their manners, even the ones who had manners to begin with.”

“‎"What falls but never breaks; what breaks but never falls?”