“Curiosity, imagination, inventiveness expand with use, like muscles,and atrophy with neglect.”

“But then all writers smoke, don't they? And drink? And sit in front of computer screens till their arteries clog and muscles atrophy?”

“Imagination is like muscle. If you don't exercise it, it shrinks.”

“The lesson I have learned is that a failure to cultivate the imagination leads to an unintended neglect of the imaginative literature of Scripture, and this in turn leads to some degree of spiritual atrophy. For Christians, the stories of Revelation are not optional reading. Nor are they child's play. Imaginative literature--the kind of literature that invites us to see in our imaginations what we cannot see with our eyes--is an important part of the Christian's literary diet. It challenges our idols. It challenges what is false and trivial in our lives.”

“Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it with use.”

“Courage is very important. Like a muscle, it is strengthened by use.”