You can love the good in us and hate the bad but the bad is in us too. Without it we wouldn't be us.

You know how we tell the good guys from the bad guys? The bad guys shoot at us."

Best lesson my father ever taught me.

Sullivan had her Crucifix Soldier and now I have mine. No. I am the soldier. Teacup is the cross.

Could it be that Christians, eager to point out how good we are, neglect the basic fact that the gospel sounds like good news only to bad people?

The beautiful wooden board on a stand in my father’s study. The gleaming ivory pieces. The stern king. The haughty queen. The noble knight. The pious bishop. And the game itself, the way each piece contributed its individual power to the whole. It was simple. It was complex. It was savage; it was elegant. It was a dance; it was a war. It was finite and eternal. It was life.

Ever since I was young, 14 or 15, I wondered if you could write a book that combined the visceral thrill of watching a movie with the total immersion you feel when you're inside a good book. And I had some success as a screenwriter before I began writing books.