Evans Paul Quotes

Chocolate is God's apology for brocolli

The most important story we'll ever write in life is our own—not with ink, but with our daily choices.

Sunsets, like childhood, are viewed with wonder not just because they are beautiful but because they are fleeting.

The smells of Christmas are the smells of childhood

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

Books are the most tolerant of friends.

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

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

Love is never convenient-and rarely painless

We are chained to that which we do not forgive

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

I am not a believer in love at first sight. For love, in its truest form, is not the thing of starry-eyed or star-crossed lovers, it is far more organic, requiring nurturing and time to fully bloom, and, as such, seen best not in its callow youth but in its wrinkled maturity. Like all living things, love, too, struggles against hardship, and in the process sheds its fatuous skin to expose one composed of more than just a storm of emotion–one of loyalty and divine friendship. Agape. And though it may be temporarily blinded by adversity, it never gives in or up, holding tight to lofty ideals that transcend this earth and time–while its counterfeit simply concludes it was mistaken and quickly runs off to find the next real thing.

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

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.

Usually life’s greatest gifts come wrapped in adversity.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It has been a mistake living my life in the past. One cannot ride a horse backwards and still hold its reins.

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

What a culture we live in, we are swimming in an ocean of information, and drowning in ignorance.

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.

Can you ever forgive me? I already have. How could you? I don't deserve it. That's what makes it love.

The universe is a trillion, trillion threads moving in seemingly unrelated directions. Yet when you look at them together, they create a remarkable tapestry.

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.

. . . Harboring an emotion as powerful as gratitude has power of its own.

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.

So often the pain of our life is no more than a reminder to take our hand off the stove.

The thing is, the only real sign of life is growth. And growth requires pain. So to choose life is to accept pain.

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.

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.

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

...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.

If you remember the why, the how will work itself out.

...even the most horribl e of nightmares is laced with the promise of dawn.

I love to sleep. It’s like being dead without the commitment.

That which we expect of life is indeed all that it ever can be.

sometimes it's the fight that makes a thing worth having

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?

If you passed me walking home from school, you probably wouldn't even notice me. That's because I'm just a kid like you. I go to school like you. I get bullied like you. Unlike you, I live in Idaho. Don't ask me what state Idaho is in––news flash––Idaho IS a state. ~Michael Vey

A man's worth isn't measured by a bank register or diploma... It's about integrity

We all arrive on Earth with a round-trip ticket.

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

Forgiveness does not require us to close our eyes but rather to truly open them.

The truest grace is not to forgive, but to have never found fault.

I love when I can reboot people when they are being mean to others...

In the end, we all lose it. Remember that. In the end, we own nothing.

The only way to remove pain from death is to remove love from life.

From our first babblings to our last word, we make but one statement, and that is our life.

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

Only those who never step, never stumble.

Regret is the most tiresome of companions.

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.

Small kindnesses often, unintentionally, produce the biggest payoffs.

You're the type who thinks of the glass as being half full, instead of half empty. "No," she said, "I'm just grateful for the glass.

We can spend our days bemoaning our losses, or we can grow from them. Ultimately the choice is ours. We can be victims of circumstance or masters of our own fate, but make no mistake, we cannot be both. The Walk - Epilogue Page 288

such fickle days of love when pain and ecstasy share the same hour

To choose the path is to choose the destination, but sometimes it seems that the path is under our feet even before we know we're walking.

Forgiveness is the key to the heart's shackles.

Some people deal with their problems by talking them to death. In fact, some enjoy the execution so much they resurrect their problems just so they can kill them again.-Nathan Hurst

The reason we start things is rarely the reason we continue them.

There are people who come into our lives as welcome as a cool breeze in summer- and last about as long.

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.

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.

Roses can grow in slums just as weeds can grow around mansions.

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

Everyone who got to where they are had to begin where they were.

The sweetness of reunion is the joy of heaven.

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

One need not fight every battle, or die in the struggle, to be a hero.

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.

Nothing heals the soul like chocolate," she said. "I just love chocolate. It's God's apology for broccoli.

We love those whom we serve (p. 26)

There's a big difference between us. I write non-fiction, you write fiction. I write truths that tell lies. You write lies that tell truths.

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

Sometimes, when tragedy strikes, people give up hope that they can expect anything more from life, when the real quest is finding out what life expects from them.

The law of centrifugal force seems to be as true for the human condition as it is for the Newtonian mechanics. The faster our lives spin, the more things tend to fly apart.

I have learned that real angels don't have gossamer white robes and Cherubic skin, they have calloused hands and smell of the days' sweat.

The truist indication of gratitude is to return what you are grateful for.

It is hard for us to recognize it now, but Peter and Paul were introducing the first Christian family to an entirely new community, a community that transcends the rigid hierarchy of human institutions, a community in which submission is mutual and all are free.

It is often during the worst of times that we see the best of humanity–awakening within the most ordinary of us that which is most sublime. I do not believe that it is circumstance that produces such greatness any more than it is the canvas that makes the artist. Adversity merely presents the surface on which we render our souls’ most exacting likeness. It is in the darkest skies that stars are best seen.

I don't think it is as much a human foible as it is a human curse that we cannot understand the beauty of a thing until it is gone.

Magnetism is not like in the superhero movies. I couldn’t pull a car toward myself, because a car weighs more than I do. I just ended up pulling myself to the car.

Geography is my strong subject,” Ostin said. “Everything is your strong subject,” Taylor said.

Life's greatest philosophy is not handed down in stoic texts and dusty tomes, but lived, in each breath and act of human compassion. For love has always demanded sacrifice, and no greater love is there than that for which our lives are traded. And in this great cause of spiritual evolution we are all called to be martyrs, to die each of us, in the quest of a higher realm and loftier ideals, that we may know God. And what if there is nothing else? What if all life ends in the silent void of death? Then is it all in vain? I think not, for love, for the sake of love, will always be enough. 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.

I've yet to read a love story that compares with mine.

We stone our prophets, then build monuments to them after they're gone.

My Dear Son, I am so very proud of you. Now, as you embark on a new journey, I'd like to share this one piece of advice. Always, always remember that - adversity is not a detour. It is part of the path. You will encounter obstacles. You will make mistakes. Be grateful for both. Your obstacles and mistakes will be your greatest teachers. And the only way to not make mistakes in this life is to do nothing, which is the biggest mistake of all. Your challenges, if you let them, will become your greatest allies. Mountains can crush or raise you, depending on which side of the mountain you choose to stand on. All history bears out that the great, those who have changed the world, have all suffered great challenges. And, more times than not it's precisely those challenges that, in God's time, lead to triumph. Abhor victimhood. Denounce entitlement. Neither are gifts, rather cages to damn the soul. Everyone who has walked this earth is a victim of injustice. Everyone. Most of all, do not be too quick to denounce your sufferings. The difficult road you are called to walk may, in fact be your only path to success.

Leah taught me that the greatest secret of life is that we find exactly what we're looking for. In spite of what happens to us, ultimately we decide whether our lives are good or bad, ugly or beautiful.

There are far too many people for us to think about each of them during our short stay on earth—like the thousands of books in a library we haven’t time to read in an afternoon. But this is no excuse to cease browsing. For every now and then, we find that one book that reaches us deep inside and introduces us to ourselves. And, in someone else’s story, we come to understand our own.

There's a problem with marrying up. You always worry that someday they'll see through you and leave. Or, worse yet, someone better will come along and take her. In my case, it wasn't someone. And it wasn't something better.

As we walk our individual life journeys, we pick up resentments and hurts, which attach themselves to our souls like burrs clinging to a hiker's socks. These stowaways may seem insignificant at first, but, over time, if we do not occasionally stop and shake them free, the accumulation becomes a burden to our souls.

The human life cycle no less than evolves around the box; from the open-topped box called a bassinet, to the pine box we call a coffin, the box is our past and, just as assuredly, our future. It should not surprise us then that the lowly box plays such a significant role in the first Christmas story. For Christmas began in a humble, hay-filled box of splintered wood. The Magi, wise men who had traveled far to see the infant king, laid treasure-filled boxes at the feet of that holy child. And in the end, when He had ransomed our sins with His blood, the Lord of Christmas was laid down in a box of stone. How fitting that each Christmas season brightly wrapped boxes skirt the pine boughs of Christmas trees around the world.

…Or he could choose life. At that pivotal moment, it occurred to him that with all his schooling in theology he had, perhaps, missed the entire point of his studies, the very crux of the gospel he had professed to believe. That the measure of a person’s heart, the barometer of good or evil, was nothing more than the extent of their willingness to choose life over death. That the path of God was, simply, the path of life, abundant and eternal. And this is where he failed, for to choose life is to choose sorrow as well as joy, pain as well as pleasure. When Hunter had buried Rachel, he buried along with her his heart, lest it might heal and feel and grow again. And in so doing he had chosen more than death, he had chosen damnation itself, for damnation is nothing more than to stop a thing in its eternal progression. In that first flight from West Chester he had run not only from the horror and pain of death but from life itself.

With the best of intentions, the generation before mine worked diligently to prepare their children to make an intelligent case for Christianity. We were constantly reminded of the superiority of our own worldview and the shortcomings of all others. We learned that as Christians, we alone had access to absolute truth and could win any argument. The appropriate Bible verses were picked out for us, the opposing positions summarized for us, and the best responses articulated for us, so that we wouldn’t have to struggle through two thousand years of theological deliberations and debates but could get right to the bottom line on the important stuff: the deity of Christ, the nature of the Trinity, the role and interpretation of Scripture, and the fundamentals of Christianity. As a result, many of us entered the world with both an unparalleled level of conviction and a crippling lack of curiosity. So ready with the answers, we didn’t know what the questions were anymore. So prepared to defend the faith, we missed the thrill of discovering it for ourselves. So convinced we had God right, it never occurred to us that we might be wrong. In short, we never learned to doubt. Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God. The former has the potential to destroy faith; the latter has the power to enrich and refine it. The former is a vice; the latter a virtue. Where would we be if the apostle Peter had not doubted the necessity of food laws, or if Martin Luther had not doubted the notion that salvation can be purchased? What if Galileo had simply accepted church-instituted cosmology paradigms, or William Wilberforce the condition of slavery? We do an injustice to the intricacies and shadings of Christian history when we gloss over the struggles, when we read Paul’s epistles or Saint Augustine’s Confessions without acknowledging the difficult questions that these believers asked and the agony with which they often asked them. If I’ve learned anything over the past five years, it’s that doubt is the mechanism by which faith evolves. It helps us cast off false fundamentals so that we can recover what has been lost or embrace what is new. It is a refining fire, a hot flame that keeps our faith alive and moving and bubbling about, where certainty would only freeze it on the spot. I would argue that healthy doubt (questioning one’s beliefs) is perhaps the best defense against unhealthy doubt (questioning God). When we know how to make a distinction between our ideas about God and God himself, our faith remains safe when one of those ideas is seriously challenged. When we recognize that our theology is not the moon but rather a finger pointing at the moon, we enjoy the freedom of questioning it from time to time. We can say, as Tennyson said, Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be; They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they.15 I sometimes wonder if I might have spent fewer nights in angry, resentful prayer if only I’d known that my little systems — my theology, my presuppositions, my beliefs, even my fundamentals — were but broken lights of a holy, transcendent God. I wish I had known to question them, not him. What my generation is learning the hard way is that faith is not about defending conquered ground but about discovering new territory. Faith isn’t about being right, or settling down, or refusing to change. Faith is a journey, and every generation contributes its own sketches to the map. I’ve got miles and miles to go on this journey, but I think I can see Jesus up ahead.