Francine Rivers

“I had been raised in the church, but I wasn't a Christian. I had a lot of head knowledge but no heart knowledge.”

“We must seize every opportunity we can to speak the truth and proclaim peace. Especially now. There's so little time for many.”

“The sin we need to be concerned about is the sin in our own lives. It's the root of all human woe, the source of anguish.”

“Love God and He will enable you to love others even when they disappoint you.”

“It was as though her tongue were a heavy weight in her mouth, and now her heart was even heavier for having kept silent.”

“My job is to allow the character to live and breathe - and become as real to the reader as he or she is to me.”

“He had the tool to break down the walls that imprisoned his people. He had the tool to rip away the veil to the Holy of Holies so that his flock could come before the Lord and be cleansed, made whole, transformed, and have a personal, loving relationship with their creator. That very tool san on Hannah's bookshelf right now, gathering dust until Sunday morning. Her Savior was there, waiting to speak to her and show her the way home again, the way back to love. YOUR WORD IS LIFE! Why didn't more people understand that?”

“The goal is to have every character take on a life of his or her own. Sometimes characters will come into the story that I haven't planned.”

“It was no accident, no coincidence, that the seasons came round and round year after year. It was the Lord speaking to us all and showing us over and over again the birth, life, death, and resurrection of his only begotten Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord. It was like a best-loved story being told day after day with each sunrise and sunset, year after year with the seasons, down through the ages since time began.”

“As gentle a man as he was, as tender as was his heart, there was nothing weak about Michael Hosea. He was the strongest-minded man Joseph had ever met. A Man like Noah. A Man like the Shepherd-king David. A man after God's own heart.”

“Emotions are powerful, but they also change as quick as the wind. That's why the Lord says to renew your mind. Don't base decisions on what you feel.”

“A pretty face and a beautiful body blind a man more quickly than any poker through the eyes.”

“I'll often dream about characters before I start writing their stories.”

“Stand firm in the Lord. Stand firm and let Him fight your battle. Do not try to fight alone.”

“Past and future were out of her hands. One was finished and couldn't be undone. The other was beyond imagining.”

“Lord, you are God! You made us. Who better to know how to fix us when we've gone wrong? who better to set us to rights again? Who better to love us through the fire and refine us into something beautiful and useful despite our wrongs?”

“Never doubt in the darkness what God has given us in the light.”

“Well, I always wanted to write from the time I was very little, and my mother encouraged me. She wrote a journal from the time she was 15 up until about the age of 76.”

“I'd rather see your honest pain than a brave front.”

“The Lord will provide.”