“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.”

“How can you hope to recognize good and evil for what they truly are if you have no belief in a moral authority greater than yourself?”

“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”

“Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don't see the self as self, what do we have to fear?”

“The world’s bumper sticker reads: Life sucks, and then you die. Perhaps Christian bumper stickers should read: Life sucks, but then you find hope and you can’t wait to die.”

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

“We Christian writers must paint evil with the blackest of brushes, not to sow fear, but to call out the monsters to be scattered by our light. If Satan cloaks himself as an angel of white, intent on deceiving the world, any attempt on our parts to minimize evil is only complicit with his strategy... Turn to the light; don’t fear the shadows it creates.”