Quotes from Ted Dekker

And does man simply choose evil, or does he create it?...Is evil a force that swims in human blood, struggling to find its way into the heart, or is it an external possibility wanting to be formed?

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.

It is surrendering what we think we know about the Father so we can truly know him.

It's neither and it's both. That's the perfect kind of art. Labels only detract from the artist's intention.

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

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.

This world we now live in may indeed be a beautiful gift from God, but do not forget that it's our union with him beyond this life for which we wait with breathless anticipation.

When the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you. But you do not belong to the world. I have brought you out of the world and that is why it hates you.

But know that how you see yourself doesn't define you. How I see you defines you. How you see yourself only defines your experience in the world.

I believed all the right things about God, but could I really let go of everything and trust Him in all things? If so, I would not experience fear. There is no fear in love and God is love.

Every moment of your life, every choice and every circumstance, has carved a path to this very moment," Mom said. "You're always exactly where you're meant to be at precisely the perfect time. You can trust that always. When it's dark and when it's light. In those times when you scream at the sky or when you turn your face up to catch the warmth of the sun—you can trust that.

So then, we are all equally guilty, every day. How, then, does one find and know peace and power in this life when surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses who only pretend to be clean by whitewashing their reputations while pointing fingers of judgment?

Do not allow fear to bind you up, dear one. You will only lose what you already have.

As Paul wrote, a love that is patient, showing no jealousy or arrogance, keeping no record of wrong, not seeking its own and not provoked by another's behavior. These are the evidences of true love which flows from those who know the Father and His limitless love for them.

Make sure your soul is attached at all times - this town will steal it in a second, given the chance.

All fear springs from an aversion to being threatened or wronged on some level. And yet it is written that true love holds no record of wrong.

Once born into child like faith, brimming with belief, typical people began to lose their faith. Society mocks them. Their friends smirk. They come to change the world, but over time the world changes them. Soon they forget the faith they once had. Then one day someone tells them the truth, but they don't want to go back, because they're comfortable in their new skin. Being a stranger in this world is never easy.

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

beauty was found beyond the surface. It was there, beyond the skin of this world, that a cure of ugliness could be could .

To know. Not to know about.

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

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.

In the space of so many scant hours, a new world had lifted the hem of her skirts before him. A world of seething pleasures and sweaty rage.

The fact is not kill entire populations is able to infect entire regions of land and control the only cure.