Richard Paul Evans Quotes

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

Life is not yours to take. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The sweetness of reunion is the joy of heaven. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The only true love is grace. All else is a counterfeit. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The past makes a good bishop but a poor king ... 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. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The only promise of childhood is that it will end. ~ Richard Paul Evans

As long as you remember the whys, the hows will take care of themselves. ~ Richard Paul Evans

We are chained to that which we do not forgive ~ Richard Paul Evans

It was the first time that I had ever been romantically kissed. It was even better than the chocolate cake. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Sometimes the most whole people are those who come from the most broken circumstances. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The most important story we'll ever write in life is our own - not with ink, but with our daily choices. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Soon I will sleep. What shall I dream of, my love? I will dream of you, of course. And I will dream for a place for us to be, a sanctuary where hearts will never break again. This is my dream, my heart. Never forget that there is no end to us, as there can be no end to love. Love must last forever, or why else would there be love? Until then, I will dream. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Man has left footprints on the moon but still hasn't walked on the ocean floor. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Some men see mountains as obstacles. Others as a canvas. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The most difficult of decisions are often not the ones in which we cannot determine the correct course; rather the ones in which we are certain of the path but fear the journey. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Old friends are memories personified. ~ Richard Paul Evans

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. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The more someone assures you that everything is okay, the more you can be assured that it's not. ~ Richard Paul Evans

I've always believed that we don't choose the life we want, we choose the life we think we deserve. We self-sabotage as a way to punish ourselves." "Why would we punish ourselves? Doesn't the world punish us enough?" "Why wouldn't we? We live in a world that is always making us work for love. It's cause and effect. ~ Richard Paul Evans

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? ~ Richard Paul Evans

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

In the beginning, I had considered these stops on my journey as interruptions - but I'm coming to understand that perhaps these detours are my journey. ~ Richard Paul Evans

We are all in motion, always. Those who are not climbing towards something are descending toward nothing. ~ Richard Paul Evans

For we are all amateurs at life, but if we do not focus too much on our mistakes, a miraculous picture emerges. And we learn that it's not the beauty of the image that warrants our gratitude
it's the chance to paint. ~ Richard Paul Evans

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. ~ Richard Paul Evans

If God came to save the world, why are so many of His professed followers intent on damning it? ~ Richard Paul Evans

There can be no joy without gratitude. ~ Richard Paul Evans

It's our memories that make us who we are. Without them, we're nothing. If that means we have to hurt sometimes, it's worth it. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Heroes are heroes precisely because they are willing to do what everyone else won't - oppose the popular voice. ~ Richard Paul Evans

I believe it's after the honeymoon ends that true love begins. It's in the hard times that the greater virtues of love reveal themselves, like tolerance and patience and kindness. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Every life can be learned from, as either a flame of hope or a cautionary flare. ~ Richard Paul Evans

They are like pythons in the jungle. The smallest child can crush a python egg. But let the snake hatch and grow and the python with squeeze and devour the child. ~ Richard Paul Evans

I once read that love is like a rose: we fixate on the blossom, but it's the thorny stem that keeps it alive and aloft. I think marriage is like that. Like my father said, the things of greatest value are the things we fight for. And in the end, if we do it right, we value the stem far more than the blossom ~ Richard Paul Evans

There are people I've yet to meet who are waiting for my path to intersect with theirs, so they can complete their own journeys. I don't know who or where they are, but I know for certain that they are waiting. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Why is it that we so easily confide secrets to strangers that we so carefully hide from ourselves? ~ Richard Paul Evans

I am a believer in angels, though not the picture-book kind with wings and harps. Such angelic accoutrements seem as nonsensical to me as devils sporting horns and carrying pitchforks. To me, angel wings are merely symbolic of their role as divine messengers. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Helping others carries its own rewards, the first of which is a return to humanity. ~ Richard Paul Evans

We do not succeed in spite of our obstacles and challenges. We succeed precisely because of them. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Everyone who got to where they are had to begin where they were. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The changing seasons of circumstance can melt away stretches of our lives like frost in the warmth of spring. ~ Richard Paul Evans

I believe that in spite of the chains we bind ourselves with, there's a primordial section of the human psyche that is still nomadic and still yearns to roam free. ~ Richard Paul Evans

People aren't wired to be alone. Even in the stressful population of prison, solitary confinement is still considered a cruel punishment. ~ Richard Paul Evans

I find myself seeking out the commonalities of our different religious experiences with hopes of encouraging, through my writings, the most hopeful, loving and redemptive qualities in all of us. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Heroes rarely look the way we draw them in our minds: attractive, imposing figures with rippling muscles and strong chins. More times than not they are humble beings, small and flawed. It is only their spirits that are beautiful and strong. ~ Richard Paul Evans

I have Tourettes syndrome. ~ Richard Paul Evans

I've never understood why people said 'in your own words.' Who else's words would I use? ~ Richard Paul Evans

You want to know what hell is? What brimstone and burining really is?"
Yes"
Hell is the perfect recollection of every evil thing you've done in your life, every thoughtless word, every cruel, evil thought or action. It's knowing that you could have helped your brother and didn't. Hell is clarity, Bob. It's nothing more than clarity." He leaned forward as if to confide in me, his gaze intense. "Do you want to know what heaven is?"
I was locked into his gaze. "Yes."
His voice was barely above a whisper, "It's the same thing. ~ Richard Paul Evans

I've yet to read a love story that compares with mine. ~ Richard Paul Evans

And if our lives are but a single flash in the dark hollow of eternity, then if, but for the briefest of moments, we shine - then how brilliantly our light has burned. And as starlight knows no boundary of space or time, so too, our illumination will shine forth throughout all eternity, for darkness has no power to quell such light. And this is a lesson we must all learn and take to heart - that all light is eternal and all love is light. And it must forever be so. ~ Richard Paul Evans

I had locked from him the deepest chambers of my fear, only to discover that he had his own key. ~ Richard Paul Evans

We can deny reality, but we can't deny the consequences of denying reality. ~ Richard Paul Evans

If you remember the why, the how will work itself out. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Forgiveness is the key to the heart's shackles. ~ Richard Paul Evans

I work at a retirement home. I'm a CNA."
"What's that?"
"It stands for Certified Nursing Assistant."
"That sounds important," I said.
She laughed. "If changing old people's diapers is important."
I thought for a moment, then said, "It is for the old people. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The idea of being a novelist is really romantic, but it's kind of the same as being president of the United States - it's not gonna happen. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The reason we start things is rarely the reason we continue them. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Home is where they don't want to kill you, Jack said. ~ Richard Paul Evans

I am lonely, I am lonely, I am lonely, I am lonely, I am lonely. How appropriate that I write this to myself. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The first casualty of hitting rock bottom is vanity. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Don't try to write what other people are writing - write what is true to you. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Where is the best place to hide a penny? It is in a jar of pennies. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Geography is my strong subject," Ostin said. "Everything is your strong subject," Taylor said. ~ Richard Paul Evans

We all swim deep in the river of our ancestry. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Sometimes its not the strength but gentleness that cracks the hardest shells. ~ Richard Paul Evans

They say love is blind, but it's not. Infatuation is blind. Emotional neediness is blind. Love sees the fault - it just sees beyond it as well. ~ Richard Paul Evans

We all arrive on Earth with a round-trip ticket. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Iwas not a reader at all, not until I discovered 'The Hobbit.' That changed my life. It gave me the courage to read. It led me to the 'Lord of the Rings' series. And once I'd read that, I knew I could read anything because I had just read thousands of pages. ~ Richard Paul Evans

So I've been thinking. Do you believe there's a hell?"
"Sure. Doesn't everybody?"
"Well, what if this is hell, but we just don't know it?"
"That's crazy. Hell is like lakes of fire, and there are devils with horns and pitchforks. here's none of those around here."
"But what if hell's not really like that?" Grace asked.
"Everyone says it's that way," I said.
"I don't think Jesus every talked about fire and brimstone."
"Then why do they teach us that at church?"
"To scare us."
"Why would they want to scare us?"
"I don't know. I just don't think God wants us to do good things because we're scared. I think he wants us to do good things because we're good. ~ Richard Paul Evans

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. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Our culture's quest to hide death behind a facade of denial has made fools and pretended immortals of us all. Perhaps it would be more helpful and liberating to begin each day by repeating the words of Crazy Horse, Today is a good day to die. ~ Richard Paul Evans

I sighed. "Now what do I do?" He leaned against my wall. "What do you want to do?" "Since when has that mattered?" "It's always mattered. It doesn't mean you'll get what you want, but what you want always matters. That's what defines you. ~ Richard Paul Evans

I have come to believe that the defining moments of most lives are not acts of courage or greatness, rather they are the simple acts: expressions of virtue or vice that are tossed carelessly like seeds from a farmer's hand, leaving their fruits to be revealed at a future date. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Simply stated, earth is a school-a divine educational process custom-fit to each of us. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Could it be that to truly love a thing is not to desire it, but to desire happiness for it? ~ Richard Paul Evans

Mr. Dallstrom is a bald, scarecrow of a man with a poochy stomache. Think of a pregnant Abraham Lincoln. ~ Richard Paul Evans

If love is our reason we may veer off course sometimes, but we'll never be lost. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Rarely do we invest the time to open the book of another's life. When we do, we are usually surprised to find its cover so misleading and its reviews so flawed. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Some people in this world have stopped looking for beauty, then wonder why their lives are so ugly. Don't be like them. The ability to appreciate beauty is of God. Especially in one another. Look for beauty in everyone you meet, and you'll find it. Everyone carries divinity within them. And everyone we meet has something to impart. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The only way to remove pain from death is to remove love from life. ~ Richard Paul Evans

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. ~ Richard Paul Evans

He's like an elephant with anger issues. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Fate is an excuse for people who are too stupid or too weak to make their own future, he said. ~ Richard Paul Evans

It's been said that every new beginning in some other beginning's end. ~ Richard Paul Evans

I have wondered why it is that our greatest triumphs spring from our greatest extremity and adversity. Perhaps it is because we are so resistant to change, we only move when our seat becomes too hot to occupy. ~ Richard Paul Evans

At one time in my career, Barnes and Noble bookstores categorized my books as religious fiction. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Without dreams life is a desert ~ Richard Paul Evans

The smells of Christmas are the smells of childhood ~ Richard Paul Evans

Some people spend so much time hunting treasure that they fail to see it all around them. It's like sifting through gold to find the silt. ~ Richard Paul Evans

It is a peculiar thing to believe that you know someone intimately only to find that you really do not. It is like finishing a book only to discover that you have missed several key chapters.
THE LETTER Chapter 9 page 104 ~ Richard Paul Evans

People talk of life's storms as if they are universal experiences. But they're not. Some people hear thunder while others touch lightning. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Take it out on whoever is close. Even people we love. Taylor's afraid for Michael and so she's upset. And since he isn't here, she took it out on you. ~ Richard Paul Evans

When we hate someone we make them more powerfull than they are. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Usually life's greatest gifts come wrapped in adversity. ~ Richard Paul Evans

In the end, it is not by knowledge that we make our journeys but by hope and faith: hope that our walk will be worthy of our steps and faith that we are going somewhere. And only when we come to the end of our journeys do we truly understand that every step of the way we were walking on water. ~ Richard Paul Evans

New hopes are a fountain of energy. ~ Richard Paul Evans

We humans are born egocentric. The sky thunders and children believe that God is mad at them for something they've done - parents divorce and children believe it's their fault for not being good enough. Growing up means putting aside our egocentricity for truth. Still, some people cling to this childish mind-set. As painful as their self-flagellation may be, they'd rather believe their crises are their fault so they can believe they have control. In doing so they make fools and false gods of themselves. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Romance novels are all about desire and happily-ever-after, but happily-ever-after doesn't come from desire - at least not the kind portrayed in pulp romances. Real love is not to desire a person but to desire their happiness - sometimes even at the expense of our own happiness. Real love is to expand our own capacity for tolerance and caring, to actively seek another's well-being. All else is simply a charade of self-interest. ~ Richard Paul Evans

You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all. You can be discouraged by failure-or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember, that's where you will find success. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The shackles of belief, when reinforced by fear, are difficult to break free from and rarely done. ~ Richard Paul Evans

As you grow older, Michael, you'll learn an important lesson - that most people spend their entire lives wishing for a second chance to do what they should have done right the first time. ~ Richard Paul Evans