Jerry B. Jenkins

“My dream remains to inform and entertain through fiction in the form of novels and movies that compete in the marketplace of ideas.”

“People want to find out what happens to the characters, and want to keep reading, and turning the pages.”

“People are scared to death and they're looking for something beyond themselves.”

“I fear it's because religion is man's attempt to reach God, and when he feels he has succeeded, he cannot abide anyone else's claim to have done the same.”

“Books that do a tenth of what Left Behind has done are smashing successes.”

“In the prequel we're going to tell about the characters before Left Behind, and the book would end with the rapture instead of start with the rapture like the first one did.”

“When I was a junior camp counselor and it was my job to tell the campers a bedtime story or devotional, I would tell them a rapture story.”

“Gil Thorpe is a great diversion and is to book writing as poetry is to prose.”

“SOON was the first novel where I used a rough outline. Usually I have characters and an idea and write as a process of discovery. Like working without a net.”

“As for dialogue, I think it keeps things moving to cut to the chase.”

“Good fiction must be entertaining, but what makes fiction special - and True - is that the realness of a novel allows it to carry a larger message.”

“I've written enough books with real celebrities, such as Walter Payton and Hank Aaron and Billy Graham, to know that fame looks good only to people who don't have it.”

“While writing my first 90 books, I was magazine editor, publisher, book publisher, executive, etc., so I was established in publishing. three of my seven or so books were biographies of sports stars and really opened doors for me in that area.”

“Writers write. Dreamers talk about it.”

“Funny, I don't feel any more powerful today than yesterday.”

“It's made me more expectant of the imminent return of Jesus, and also more sensitive to the people around me. Knowing Jesus will return soon makes me want all the more to tell people about him and all that he offers.”

“I was raised as a Christian but the transaction has to be made by yourself - you and God - at some point.”

“The theater of the mind is impossible to compete with, and I like the idea that with a few suggestions, each reader forms in his or her own mind what a character or a place looks like.”

“Actually 'Soon' has more than the Left Behind series, but I really believe less is more.”

“I was raised in a Christian home and, in fact, my mother led me to Christ as a youngster.”