Quotes from Richard Paul Evans

The smells of Christmas are the smells of childhood

Books are the most tolerant of friends.

Sometimes its not the strength but gentleness that cracks the hardest shells.

I've come to know that what we want in life is the greatest indication of who we really are.

Love is never convenient-and rarely painless

Feelings can be like wild animals-we underrate how fierce they are until we've opened their cage

We are chained to that which we do not forgive

I have come to believe that we do not walk alone in this life. There are others, fellow sojourners, whose journeys are interwoven with ours in seemingly random patterns, yet, in the end, have been carefully placed to reveal a remarkable tapestry. I believe God is the weaver at that loom.

It is better to be loved by one person who knows your soul than millions who don't even know your phone number.

Dance. Dance for the joy and breath of childhood. Dance for all children, including that child who is still somewhere entombed beneath the responsibility and skepticism of adulthood. Embrace the moment before it escapes from our grasp. For the only promise of childhood, of any childhood, is that it will someday end. And in the end, we must ask ourselves what we have given our children to take its place. And is it enough?

Denial, perhaps, is a necessary human mechanism to cope with the heartaches of life.

We humans...are seriously flawed. The things that are the most necessary, the most critical to us, are the things we take most for granted. Air. Water. Love. If you have someone to love, you are lucky. If they love you back, you're blessed. And if you waste the time you have to love them, you're a fool.

I have learned a great truth of life. We do not succeed in spite of our challenges and difficulties, but rather, precisely because of them.

The assumption of time is one of humanity's greatest follies. We tell ourselves that there's always tomorrow, when we can no more predict tomorrow than we can the weather. Procrastination is the thief of dreams.

Usually life's greatest gifts come wrapped in adversity.

We carry around in our heads these pictures of what our lives are supposed to look like, painted by the brush of out intentions. It's the great, deep secret of humanity that in the end none of our lives look the way we thought they would. As much as we wish to believe otherwise, most of life is a reaction to circumstances.

It is in the dark times that the light of friendship shines brightest.

Mr. Vey, you cannot be stuffed into a locker without your consent." Dallstrom said, which may be the dumbest thing ever said in a school. "You should have resisted. That's like blaming someone who was struck by lightning for getting in the way.

Broken vows are like broken mirrors. They leave those who held to them bleeding and staring at fractured images of themselves. (pg. 161)

Life has taught me that to fly, you must first accept the possibility of falling.

I don't want to go to Peru." How do you know? You've never been there." I've never been to hell either and I'm pretty sure I don't want to go there.

Nothing heals the soul like chocolate ... It's God's apology for broccoli.

I think the secret to a hoppy life is a selective memory. Remember what you are most grateful for and quickly forget what your not.

We spend our life building higher fences and stronger locks, when the gravest dangers are already inside