No one knows what love is," he told me. "If someone says they do, they're full of shit.

I did a lot of reading of the Bible and became fascinated with the idea of the Rapture. It's pretty wild. I hadn't heard of it until I was in college.

Eve still marveled on a daily basis at the speed with which her own life had changed. A year ago, she'd been lost and flailing, and now she was found. She wanted to call it a miracle, but it was simpler than that, and a lot more ordinary; she'd met a kind and decent man who loved her.

Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control.

I read 'The Great Gatsby' in high school and was hypnotized by the beauty of the sentences and moved by the story about the irrevocability of lost love.

When I was writing 'The Abstinence Teacher,' I really tried to immerse myself in contemporary American evangelical culture.