Quotes from Richard Paul Evans

The past makes a good bishop but a poor king." "What does that mean?" I said. "It means that it's good to take counsel from the past but not to be ruled by it. Otherwise we end up using today to fight yesterday's battles and miss tomorrow's promise.

What the masses don't realize is that they're looking for a shepherd. Those who don't think they can be influenced or call themselves 'independent thinkers' are usually the biggest conformists of all—and the easiest to turn. Why do you think cults prey on college students? Easy picking.

The pages continue to turn, and every day I'm a little older, hopefully a little wiser and a lot more grateful. Do I have regrets? I have a few - but not as many as you might think. If it hadn't been for the darkness, I never would have known the light. In life we all take different paths, some more difficult than others, but in the end, all that matters is whether or not they lead us home.

People can become so blinded by their own perceived victimhood that they make victims of everyone around them.

I have found that the most significant experiences of our lives rarely come when we're expecting them and oftentimes when we're not even paying attention.

Righteous indignation is the alibi of mobs and murderers.

In the end, and, if this is, indeed, my end, remember this: Christmas is the story of a Father reaching out to His children. Nothing more. Nothing less.

What we fail to realize is that grace is more than our destination, it is the journey itself, manifested in each breath and with each step we take. Grace surrounds us, whirls about us like the wind, falls on us like rain. Grace sustains us on our journeys, no matter how perilous they may be and, make no mistake, they are all perilous. We need not hope for grace, we merely need to open our eyes to its abundance. Grace is all around us, not just in the hopeful future but in the miracle of now.

We live in a world that's always making us work for love. It's cause and effect. That's the story of my childhood. If I can be good enough, maybe my mother will love me.

To deny our pasts is to burn the bridge we must cross to self-understanding. Alan Christoffersen's diary

Sometimes, to move forward, we must be willing to look back.

It seems that the most significant events in our lives happen while we're worried about something else happening.