Crux Quotes & Sayings

Here is the crux of the matter, the distilled essence, the only thing you need to remember: When considering whether to say yes or no, you must choose the response that feels like freedom. Period. — Martha Beck

That was the crux. You. Only you could work on you. Nobody could force you, and if you weren't ready, then you weren't ready, and no amount of open-armed encouragement was going to change that. — Norah Vincent

Herein lies the crux of the matter. To stand face to face with insecurity is still not to understand it. To understand it, you must not face it but be it. — Alan W. Watts

What else do I have to offer? Nothing happens to me anymore. That's the reality of getting old, and I guess that's really the crux of the matter. I'm not ready to be old yet. — Sara Gruen

Then, all of a sudden, everything changed. He dropped his hand to his side and his expression melted and transformed, and for the first time in days, the look in his eyes said I was the center of his world again. The crux of his universe. The core of his existence. — Laurelin Paige

Welcome to the fringes of reality, but who says that the fringes are even the fringes? Maybe they're the crux of it. Maybe they're the real deal. — Rachel Elliott

The crux of the biscuit is: If it entertains you, fine. Enjoy it. If it doesn't, then blow it out your ass. I do it to amuse myself. If I like it, I release it. If somebody else likes it, that's a bonus. — Frank Zappa

There is no end in creativity. Hence, to strive towards an end result is a fool's errand. Set goals, make music and paint pictures, but know that the crux of your happiness balances delicately on the wings of the act of creativity itself. Not at the finish line. — Brandon Boyd

On my way home, I ran into Miss Hartnell and she detained me at least ten minutes, declaiming in her deep bass voice against the improvidence and ungratefulness of the lower classes. The crux of the matter seemed to be that The Poor did not want Miss Hartnell in their houses. My sympathies were entirely on their side. — Agatha Christie

The Cross of Christ is the crux of history. Without the Cross, history cannot be defined or corrected. — Ravi Zacharias

I couldn't imagine any other way of living, outside of books, outside my work. Which doesn't mean I am not interested in other things, of course - I am interested in many things. But the center, the crux, is always literature. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

This is all we are at our best, he thought, tiny instances accumulating up into a greater whole. There is noting magnificent in this world, he thought, that is not born from an act so slight as to go wholly unnoticed. We must be especially attentive to see them, and to remember to perform them, he thought, yes, that is the crux: we must simply pay attention. — Toby Barlow

And I see what I am. I'm amputated. I have hacked my life up into grace moments and curse moments. The chopping that has cut myself off from the embracing love of a God who "does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow" (Lamentations 3:33), but labors to birth grief into greater grace. Isn't this the crux of the gospel? The good news that all those living in the land of shadow of death have been birthed into new life, that the transfiguration of a suffering — Ann Voskamp

That's the crux of almost every fight, the moment when the strength drains out of you and the adrenaline pumps so hard that it becomes a burden and surrender appears like a ghost at ringside. — Stieg Larsson

Battered and bloody, we join Cassius, Lysander, and Sevro before the door leading out of the Sovereign's inner sanctum as Cassius types in the Olympic code to open the doors. He pauses to sniff the air. 'What's that smell?'
'Smells like a sewer,' I say.
Sevro stares intensely at the razors he's taken from Aja, including the one belonging to Lorn. 'I think it smells like victory.'
'Did you shit your pants?' Cassius squints at him. 'You did.'
'Sevro ... ' Mustang says.
'It's an involuntary muscle reaction when you're fake executed and swallow massive amounts ofhaemanthus oil,' Sevro snaps. 'You think I would do that on purpose?'
Cassius and I look at each other.
I shrug. 'Well, maybe.'
'Yeah, actually.'
He flips us the crux and makes a face, twisting his lips till it looks like he's going to explode. 'What's happening?' I ask. 'Are you ... still ... '
'No! — Pierce Brown

By the way, why doesn't Crux hire someone who can cook? Like, I'm sure there's one or two evil chef around that he could find, right? This tastes awful. It's like my mouth is rejecting me." I said, when I took a bite of his bread. I took the word 'fluffy', it was more likely to be a murder weapon. If you had about dozen of it and mixed it with poison in case the target had really strong skull.
"You eat it anyway." he looked at me blankly. "And that's mine."
"I'm hungry and nobody's perfect. — Rea Lidde

If you want to have a nonmiraculous day, I suggest that newspaper and caffeine form the crux of your morning regimen. Listen to the morning news while you're in the shower, read the headlines as you are walking out the door, make sure you're keeping tabs on everything: the wars, the economy, the gossip, the natural disasters ... But if you want the day ahead to be full of miracles, then spend some time each morning with God. — Marianne Williamson

You're such a bitch; I tell I love you and what do you do next? You drop me like a bad habit. Hasn't it occurred to you I may deserve better than a coldhearted hypocrite so full of fears and prejudices she can't tell her head from her ass? I won't beg for anyone's love, and yours is no exception. I deserve a woman that doesn't have to be talked into showing that she cares. Someone who'd trust my commitment to her. — Elle Aycart

I dare to think that it is this outsized reality, and not just its literary expression, that has deserved the attention of the Swedish Academy of Letters. A reality not of paper, but one that lives within us and determines each instant of our countless daily deaths, and that nourishes a source of insatiable creativity, full of sorrow and beauty, of which this roving and nostalgic Colombian is but one cipher more, singled out by fortune. Poets and beggars, musicians and prophets, warriors and scoundrels, all creatures of that unbridled reality, we have had to ask but little of imagination, for our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable. This, my friends, is the crux of our solitude. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The big studio era is from the coming of sound until 1950, until I came in ... I came in at a crux in film, which was the end of the studio era and the rise of filmmaking. — Charlton Heston

The control of knowledge is the crux of tomorrow's worldwide struggle for power in every human institution. — Alvin Toffler

My photographs are subjective and personal-they'r e intended to be accessible, to relate to people's lives ... People-their well-being and survival-are the crux of what's important to me. — Roy DeCarava

Armaments do not, generally speaking, cause wars. This notion, the logical crux of all arguments in favor of disarmament, turns the causal relationship upside down. Actually, it is wars, or conflicts threatening war, that cause armaments, not the reverse. — James Burnham

Freedom is the crux of self-respect. It is difficult to feel good about ourselves when we are unnaturally dependent on someone or something. — David J. Lieberman

The worst part was that the Brit's reportage was just spleen-filled editorializing on the lack of ethics in the valley's board-rooms (a favorite subject of hers, which no doubt accounted for his fellow-feeling), and it was also the crux of Kettlewell's schtick. The spectacle of an exec who talked ethics enraged Rat-Toothed more than the vilest baby-killers. He was the kind of revolutionary who liked his firing squads arranged in a circle. — Cory Doctorow

When a thing is said to be not worth refuting you may be sure that either it is flagrantly stupid - in which case all comment is superfluous - or it is something formidable, the very crux of the problem. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Gabriel didn't need to look back. To see. He trusted his friend. He smiled grimly. And wasn't that the crux? — Anne Mallory

The crux of the matter, is that people don't understand the true nature of money. It is meant to circulate, not be wrapped up in a stocking — Guglielmo Marconi

the mission and purpose of the church was summed up into three words that I believe are the crux of our faith: Christ, cause, and community. — Jarrid Wilson

When a phrase is born, it is both good and bad at the same time. The secret of its success rests in a crux that is barely discernible. One's fingertips must grasp the key, gently warming it. And then the key must be turned once, not twice. — Isaac Babel

The crux of the sea level issue is that it starts very slowly but once it gets going it is practically unstoppable ... There is no way I can see to stop this rise, even if we have gone to zero emissions. — Stefan Rahmstorf

People read legal writing differently. When you're at the crux of a legal argument, every step is a step in the argument. The judge will see any holes. If you do that in fiction, it's too long and boring. — William Lashner

The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good might result? When will our moralists give us an answer to this question? — John Hersey

A long-faced, proud-shouldered woman with deep olive skin snorts at the demotion. Her gaze is peculiarly shrewd for a Blue. Bald, like the rest, with digital azure tattoos swirling not only along crown and temples, but over hands and neck. Sevro lopes back to me. "Sevro, stop pissing around." "I like being big." "I'm still bigger." He tries flipping me the crux in his suit, but the mechanical fingers aren't so agile. I — Pierce Brown

The reality of time and change seemed to me the crux of realism. — Karl R. Popper

On January 21, with the murder of the King-priest, was consummated what has significantly been called the passion
of Louis XVI. It is certainly a crying scandal that the public assassination of a weak but goodhearted man has been
presented as a great moment in French history. That scaffold marked no climax - far from it. But the fact remains
that, by its consequences, the condemnation of the King is at the crux of our contemporary history. It symbolizes the
secularization of our history and the disincarna-tion of the Christian God. Up to now God played a part in history
through the medium of the kings. But His representative in history has been killed, for there is no longer a king.
Therefore there is nothing but a semblance of God, relegated to the heaven of principles. — Albert Camus

Now that he's gone, I feel like I'm a senior citizen who gave away her life savings over the phone.
And this is the crux: I never in my life believed in someone as much as I believed in him.
The shame is overwhelming. — Emma Forrest

At the crux of Half Dome, at the very top of the wall, imagine, like, a smooth wall of rock - a nearly vertical granite slap with tiny ripples for your hands and feet. And so you're really trusting the rubber on your shoes to stick to these ripples. — Alex Honnold

The master and mistress of the house and the rest of the Blood -even the Crux himself- brought our food, poured the wine, did our bidding. The centerpiece was a roasted stag. crowned with gilded antlers and stuffed with songbirds; they had hunted well. We were forbidden to kill the deer that fattened on our coleworts and stole our grain, and the venison tasted all the better for the salt of revenge. — Sarah Micklem

Not only the entire ability to think rests on language ... but language is also the crux of the misunderstanding of reason with itself. — Johann Georg Hamann

This is the crux of the moral pessimists: if they really wanted to promote their neighbor's redemption, then they would have to resolve themselves to spoiling existence for him, and thus to being his misfortune; out of pity, they would have to
become evil! — Friedrich Nietzsche

This is the crux of the problem: because the Republicans and the right wing have been successful in almost eliminating unions, everyone else has suffered as a result. — Michael Moore

That is the crux of modern conservatism - government taking strong measures to foster the attitudes and aptitudes necessary for increased individual independence. — George Will

I have been thinking that the crux of happiness matter for me is whether or not I am in the moment, in the flow, at one with what is happening and I am doing. Otherwise, I'm lost in worry, and anxiety about past and future, plagued by what Buddhist meditators call "comparing mind," comparing what is to other so-called possibilities. — Lama Surya Das

And therein lay the crux of her problem. She didn't trust God to direct her steps. When trouble loomed, she altered her course, convincing herself she was displaying wisdom and the courage of her convictions. Yet in actuality, she was surrendering to fear, letting it control her in place of the Lord's hand — Karen Witemeyer

The fear of death is for all of us everywhere, but for the great intelligence of the opium eater it is beautifully narrowed into the crux of drugs. — John Cheever

Here's the crux of the struggle: I want to experience your vulnerability but I don't want to be vulnerable. Vulnerability is courage in you and inadequacy in me. I'm drawn to your vulnerability but repelled by mine. As — Brene Brown

While there are things with this job that remain constant, in terms of how you shoot, the actual crux of the character is always different and always evolving. — Robert Kazinsky

[ 1600 Penn] is an ensemble comedy about a family. It just happens to utilize the fact that my character is now being forced into this world as a jumping off point. But, in no way is it the crux of the series. It's simply an introduction to the world. — Josh Gad

Once upon a time
Somebody say to me
(This is a dog talkin' now)
What is your Conceptual Continuity?
Well, I told him right then
(Fido said)
It should be easy to see
The crux of the biscuit
Is the Apostrophe(') — Frank Zappa

The importance of detachment from things, the importance of poverty, is that we are supposed to be free from things that we might prefer to people. Wherever things have become more important than people, we are in trouble. That is the crux of the whole matter. — Thomas Merton

Great are the promises concerning this land of America. We are told unequivocally that it "is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ" (Ether 2:12). This is the crux of the entire matter - obedience to the commandments of God. — Gordon B. Hinckley

The core problem isn't the fact that we're lukewarm, halfhearted, or stagnant Christians. The crux of it all is why we are this way, and it is because we have an inaccurate view of
God. We see Him as a benevolent Being who is satisfied when people manage to fit Him into their lives in some small way. We forget that God never had an identity crisis. He knows that He's great and deserves to be the center of our lives. — Francis Chan

Go to the root of the problems of people and discover ways to save them — Sunday Adelaja

Your compassion travels beyond your own inner circle. And then you breathe out an alternative version where you mentally and emotionally and psychologically purify the poisons. So indeed, the generative idea is in the crux of this practice and of my propensity toward poetry, which is a practice of the imagination. — Anne Waldman

The crux of the worldview conflict ... is the denial of God's right to be God, and the usurpation of that right by man. In a word, it is a life or death struggle over _sovereignty_. Who will be sovereign- man or God?
If God has lost the authority to be sovereign over reality, if He has lost the authority to provide objective law, and if He has lost the authority to reveal absolute truth, then in the eyes of men, He has lost the right to be God. He has been stripped of His "God-ness," or the very attributes which make Him God.
At the same time, man is never content to be godless. He must have a god. Somebody or something must provide that authority. Thus, modern man gladly assumes that position, and humanist man becomes his own ultimate authority ... This is the Gettysburg of the worldview war of the 21st century. — Kevin Swanson

According to A Course in Miracles, this separation from God first happened millions of years ago. But the important revelation, the crux of the Course, is that in reality it never happened at all. — Marianne Williamson

The crux of the argument was that Jenni was a bloodthirsty psycho and would waste all of the ammo while Juan was too stupid to understand guns were made to be fired. — Rhiannon Frater

I just told her I love her. There's no going back. Nothing to do but own it. But there's the crux of the matter - I want to own it. — Tammara Webber

Proofs of the Euclidean [parallel] postulate can be developed to such an extent that apparently a mere trifle remains. But a careful analysis shows that in this seeming trifle lies the crux of the matter; usually it contains either the proposition that is being proved or a postulate equivalent to it. — Johann Heinrich Lambert

The cross is the crux, the crossroads, the twisted knot at the center of reality, to which all previous history leads and from which all subsequent history flows. By it we know all reality is cruciform - the love of God, the shape of creation, the labyrinth of human history. — Peter J. Leithart

This, I think, is the crux of evil in this world, Majesty: those who feel entitled to whatever they want, whatever they can grab. Such people never ask themselves if they have the right. They consider no cost to anyone but themselves. — Erika Johansen

We have here the fundamental problem of ethics, the crux of the theory of moral conduct. What is justice? -shall we seek righteousness, or shall we seek power? -is it better to be good, or to be strong? — Will Durant

I feign knowledge of writing: that I know something about it, that I should have learned something after all these years, that I might know something tomorrow.
I read too much and write too little, or write too much and live too little. I have no classical education, no literary degree. I'm not specialized, Hugoed or geniusized; should I be writing at all?
In this whole vast world, I'm a female peon sitting here at night wondering what it is I want to say. I aim for fluidity. But no, nix that line, that thought, this life. That's the crux of it, isn't it? This life: it's out of reach. I'm not sure what I'm saying anymore. — Chila Woychik

A woman I have never seen before
Steps from the darkness of her town-house door
At just that crux of time when she is made
So beautiful that she or time must fade.
What use to claim that as she tugs her gloves
A phantom heraldry of all the loves
Blares from the lintel? That the staggered sun
Forgets, in his confusion, how to run?
Still, nothing changes as her perfect feet
Click down the walk that issues in the street,
Leaving the stations of her body there
Like whips that map the countries of the air. — Richard Wilbur

Memory is the crux of our humanity. Without memory we have no identities. That is really why I am committing an autobiography. — Erica Jong

Learning to explain phenomena such that one continues to be fascinated by the failure of one's explanations creates a continuing cycle of thinking, that is the crux of intelligence. It isn't that one person knows more than another, then. In as sense, it is important to know less than the next person, or at least to be certain of less, thus enabling more curiosity and less explaining away because one has again encountered a well-known phenomenon. The less you know the more you can find out about, and finding out for oneself is what intelligence is all about. — Roger Schank

This is the crux of Christianity: to remember and give thanks, 'eucharisteo'. — Ann Voskamp

The crux and crisis is that man found it natural to worship, even natural to worship unnatural things — G.K. Chesterton

And here lies the crux of the matter: to say that nature is personal may mean not so much seeing the world differently as acting differently
or, to state it another way, it may mean interacting with more-than-human others in nature as if those others had a life of their own and then coming to see, through experience, that these others are living, interactive beings.
When nature is personal, the world is peopled by rocks, trees, rivers, and mountains, all of whom are actors and agents, protagonists of their own stories rather than just props in a human story. When Earth is truly alive, the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human. — Priscilla Stuckey

As years pass, and the abundance of the future is depleted, the crux of old mistakes and the cost of old choices are ever recalibrated. Resentment, the interest in umbrage derived from being wronged, is computed minute by minute, savagely, however you try to ignore it. — Gregory Maguire

Time would heal, Mrs. Sussex said. Byron's loss would grow more bearable. But here was the crux. He didn't want to lose his loss. Loss was all he had left of his mother. If time healed the gap, it would be as if she had never been there. One — Rachel Joyce

Do you remember what Crux said?" Scorn asked China. "I bet you do. He said that you handed Skulduggery Pleasant's wife and child over to Nefarian Serpine. He said that you led them to their deaths ... Blackmail is just an ugly, ungainly word, but these are ugly and ungainly times in which we live. You will do as I say, exactly as I say, or I will tell the Skeleton Detective your terrible, terrible secret. Do you agree to my terms? — Derek Landy

The question is not, do we go to church; the question is, have we been converted. The crux of Christianity is not whether or not we give donations to popular charities but whether or not we are really committed to the poor. — Joan D. Chittister

Standing there, peering around his room, Pete realized something that should have dawned on him years ago: Science really did suck. (Russell was right.) There just wasn't any point to it. Sure, in its most altruistic distillation, science saved lives - but when had it ever made those lives worth living? The cold machine called science's sole purpose, and Pete knew it now, was to drain the wonder out of things, to sap the imagination of its juices, to rob possibilities from dreamers. Science explained without ever getting to the crux of the matter, locking us all into a single paradigm of thought: that all we are is randomly accumulated stardust hanging out on a larger clump of randomly accumulated stardust that is spiraling out and away from other chunks of randomly accumulated stardust, on a collision course with an empty infinity. — Jay Nichols

Do we consider that anything goes, that we have no responsibility towards others but only for satisfying our needs?
Well, that is the crux of the great novels xxx - the question of doing what is right or what we want to do. — Azar Nafisi

But if subjective pietism is not the real crux of this all-important Gospel, if it is instead belief in the plan of salvation, how are we not dealing with "salvation by (cognitive) works" and Gnosticism (salvation by special knowledge)? Fundamentalists hotly deny it, but isn't it finally a matter of believers in the right religion being saved and everyone else being disqualified? — Robert M. Price

I think that the whole thing, the crux of the whole psychedelic issue, is that it accentuates personal responsibility by making people take their own experiences seriously. — Terence McKenna

Monopolizing the right to speak authoritatively about "security" in name of everyone - the ability to evoke the "national interest" or a universal "we" - is at the crux of the practice of power. — Gearoid O Tuathail

Managers tend to blame their turnover problems on everything under the sun, while ignoring the crux of the matter: people don't leave jobs; they leave managers. — Travis Bradberry

The crux of our conflict lay in the fact that we each couldn't be who we wanted the other to be. — Janet Mock

Regarding the mantra ... "There is no overtraining" Just because you can handle large amounts of volume doesn't mean it's needed. That's the crux of the issue. Just because the body can tolerate something doesn't mean it's a necessity for progress. This is simply poor logic. — Steve Shaw

Maybe if I'd been someone else I'd see it differently. But isn't that the crux of the problem? Wouldn't we all act differently if we were someone else? — Emily Fridlund

I love where he and I stand right now. It's like we're on the brink, and everything's full of excitement and potential precisely because the heavy making out is still something to look forward to. I realize we can't remain PG-rated forever. I'm all too aware, though, how easy it is to let hooking up become the crux of a relationship. Then you forget how to just be together and why you should stay together. So for the meantime I'd like to take things slowly in order to prevent hooking up from ever getting too
important.
Amy would say I'm overreacting, but I'm just trying to learn from past mistakes. — Daria Snadowsky

This, of course, is the crux. It doesn't really matter what the language is, only whether there's a transcendent moral grammar underpinning it. No one really cares what hell's called or who runs it. They just don't want to go there. — Glen Duncan

Being a kid is so much more fun than being an adult. I think that's the crux of it. I think men are just less inclined to grow up because it's much more fun being a child. — Robert Kazinsky

I'm a storyteller: the crux of the matter is to reach beauty, poetry; it doesn't matter if that is comedy or tragedy. They're the same if you reach the beauty. — Roberto Benigni

To me, the most interesting part of 'True Blood' is that the entire crux of the show is based on identity and finding your true identity. — Marshall Allman

You are a very special child," the old handmaid said, stroking Eleonora's hair. "You know that don't you?"
Eleonora mumbled a yes.
"You know you are special, but I think that you aren't sure how."
She nodded. That was, indeed, the crux of it. — Michael David Lukas

It is the ability to make predictions about the future that is the crux of intelligence. — Jeff Hawkins

A cosmic mystery of immense proportions, once seemingly on the verge of solution, has deepened and left astronomers and astrophysicists more baffled than ever. The crux ... is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing. — William Broad

Now we come to the crux of my philosophy: if the taking of pleasure is enhanced by the criminal character of the circumstances
if, indeed, the pleasure taken is directly proportionate to the severity of the crime involved
, then is it not criminality itself which is pleasurable, and the seemingly pleasure-producing act nothing more than the instrument of its realization? — Marquis De Sade

All philosophic propositions, every attempt to think including all acts of oral or written articulation of an argument and metaphorically expressed ideas, are subject to the dynamics and limitations of human language. The spoken thought is only part of any philosophic message; the other part is unsaid because it is unsayable. The crux of any philosophic proposition reverberates in the echo of silence, the thought that lies in-between the lines. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Let's say you and a small child go to a magic show, where things are made to float in the air. Which of you would have the most fun?"
"I probably would."
"And why would that be?"
"Because I would know how impossible it all is."
"So ... for the child it's no fun to see the laws of nature being defied before it has learned what they are."
"I guess that's right."
"And we are still at the crux of Hume's philosophy of experience. He would have added that the child has not yet become a slave of the expectations of habit; he is thus the more open-minded of you two. I wonder if the child is not also the greater philosopher? He comes utterly without preconceived opinions. And that, my dear Sophie, is the philosopher's most distinguishing virtue. The child perceives the world as it is, without putting more into things than he experiences — Jostein Gaarder

Ah, dear Reader, is there a married man living who hasn't purged his drawers and closets of premarital memorabilia, only to have one more incriminating relic from yester-life rear its lovely head? Kristy contends that old flames never die, not completely. They smolder for years in hidden places. They flare up again just when you think you're over them. They can burn you if you don't deal with them. Such is the price I've had to pay for not rooting out the evidence of my life B.C. (Before Contentment). Or, perhaps, for having planted it too well.
But that, you see, is no longer an issue. Shall I tell you the crux of this argument? A man with a past can be forgiven. A man without one cannot be trusted. If there were no pictures in my drawer for Kirsty to uncover, I would have had to produce some. — Ted Gargiulo

Our sexuality is fundamental to who we are, surely the crux of this debate is whether or not we accord equal right and respect and esteem to people regardless of their sexuality. — Sarah Wollaston

She put the Trust into her sister's hand. Magdalen took it from her mechanically. "You!" she said, looking at her sister with the remembrance of all that she had vainly ventured, of all that she had vainly suffered, at St. Crux - "you have found it! — Wilkie Collins

The kid has to learn by his own experience how to learn to balance the short- and long-term pursuit of what he wants.'
'He must be freely enlightened to self.'
'This is the crux of the educational system you find so appalling. Not to teach what to desire. To teach how to be free. To teach how to make knowledgeable choices about pleasure and delay and the kid's overall down-the-road maximal interests. — David Foster Wallace

I think the crux of the matter was that if we were going to become partners in, for example, the International Space Station, we had to gain the respect of a country like the United States and particularly its space organization, NASA. — Marc Garneau

... 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.
— Richard Paul Evans