Dekker Quotes & Sayings

The truth is beautiful, like you. The truth is you have been made perfect and are wholly loved. Chosen simply because you breathe, because you exist, because of who created you. — Rachelle Dekker

The kingdom of God is not about what we see with these eyes. It's not about eating or drinking or walking or throwing away the crutches. Those can be good gifts, like wealth and prosperity. But they touch only the surface and they are quite incidental. His kingdom is about peace and joy and love and a kind of power that will turn your heart into a herd of thundering horses if you let it. It — Ted Dekker

His eyes held a subtle light that she could not mistake for anything other than true attraction. The kind that mere friends did not share. She hated it. She loved it. She hated that she loved it. — Ted Dekker

Do you have the power to move mountains? Do you turn the other cheek, able to offer love and peace to those who strike you? Are you anxious in your relationship or lack thereof? Are you concerned about your means of income, or your career, or your status? Do you fear for your children? Are you worried about what you will wear, or how others will view you in any respect? Do you secretly suspect that you can never quite measure up to what you think God or the world expects of you? That you are doomed to be a failure, always? Are you quick to point out the failures of others? — Ted Dekker

Most people die twice: first when they give up on life, and finally when Death comes to take what's his. — Ted Dekker

Maybe he does show himself to us, but we don't see. Maybe it's not our senses that are the problem, but our minds. — Ted Dekker

... It's not that you don't have the capacity to accept the truth. You don't want to accept it, and you hide behind your own logic and intelligence while the truth marches by. Step out and join it, for goodness' sake! Shout it out in full step! I believe! — Ted Dekker

Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise — Thomas Dekker

My name is Gerhard Braun, and I am God. — Ted Dekker

He plunged beneath the surface and knew that these were Elyon's waters, and his lake had no bottom. — Ted Dekker

It was really weird dealing with the media. I had no idea how to handle it. — Laura Dekker

Every moment of your life, every choice and every circumstance, has carved a path to this very moment," Mom said. "You're always exactly where you're meant to be at precisely the perfect time. You can trust that always. When it's dark and when it's light. In those times when you scream at the sky or when you turn your face up to catch the warmth of the sun - you can trust that. — Ted Dekker

Live to discover, as long as discovery leads to a love that comes from the Creator ... writing was the mirror to life. — Ted Dekker

Come hither, my dear. Come hither, that I mightest protectest thou! — Ted Dekker

But the more I succeeded in the world's eyes, the more I realized that that success itself was only another prison, fashioned by the values of this world. More wealth only demanded I maintain that wealth. More status only begged me to rise higher. And fame ... What a cruel and jealous mistress fame is. — Ted Dekker

Some would say the Creator is a lamb. Some would say he's a lion. Some would say both. The fact is, he is neither a lamb nor a lion. These are fiction. Metaphors. Yet the Creator is both a lamb and a lion. These are both truths. — Ted Dekker

I studied philosophy, religious studies, and English. My training was writing four full-length novels and hiring an editor to tear them apart. I had enough money to do that, and then rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. — Ted Dekker

Pain was not God's plan for this life. It is a reality, but it is not part of the plan." I — Ted Dekker

To know. Not to know about. — Ted Dekker

We are ne'er like angels till our passion dies. — Thomas Dekker

This will wreck you! Today, treat everyone you meet as if they're going to be dead by midnight. extend all the kindness and understanding you can, and do it with no thought of any reward. — Ted Dekker

He knew me. He knew me through and through and he found no shame in me. — Ted Dekker

The day is brimming with freedom. He took another draw of the air. There's nothing like the clean smell of freedom, wouldn't you say Eden? — Ted Dekker

And to understand how love unfolds, you must understand how Elyon loves. — Ted Dekker

I believe in God because only an idiot can look at the complex balance of nature and believe that has not been designed. Believe it or not, but some people still believe that a watch can make itself out of sand if you just give it enough time. That's what they call evolution. And you wonder why I am cynical. From my point of view you have to be a fool not to be cynical. — Ted Dekker

Women could be quite crafty, he knew that much. His father said it often. Smarter than men, too, most of the time. You had to know your way around if you wanted to fall in love with a woman. — Ted Dekker

Never mistake a woman as an opportunity for bliss. — Ted Dekker

I was four when I first stood at the helm on my own. — Laura Dekker

If you look to anyone to satisfy your longing, you will think you need something more than him and what he has made you to be complete and at peace. The expectation of fulfillment in relationships will always fail you, and you will hold grievances that darken your world. You will become blind to the light that guides to the narrow path. You were taught this on the mountain alone, and yet among others you forget. — Ted Dekker

That's it?" Jason asked. "You spent an hour talking about how lucky you were to be dying?"
No, not dying, Son. Living. — Ted Dekker

There's always risk in life's most rewarding pursuits, isn't there? — Ted Dekker

Yeshua shows us the Way to be saved from all that we think threatens us on the dark seas of our lives. Only when we, too, see what He sees can we leave the treasured boat that we think will save us and walk on the troubled waters that we thought would surely drown us. — Ted Dekker

What attention would death pay to his pathetic voice? He was powerless without her. — Ted Dekker

You will only see who you are and thus be who you are as you surrender your attachment to all other identities, — Ted Dekker

My son was singing to us of our Father! Of Yeshua ... Of himself, the truest part of him, and of me, the me that was now risen and complete, joined in Yeshua's identity, like water in a bowl and the bowl in the water at once. He was the Way. The Truth. Life. No one could know the Father without this joining. And the song said more, all at once, like the opening of eyes to see an entire landscape once darkened by blindness. The mystery Talya sang to me in that single note could fill a hundred scrolls. I stood high in that arena and I trembled with wonder. TALYA — Ted Dekker

Do you know what hope and fear have in common? ... They both hold great power. But that power is dependent on both fear and hope together. Think about it. Without the fear of something terrible, you cannot have the hope that it won't happen, you see? Without having hope for something wonderful, you can't have any fear of losing it. They work together, the two most powerful forces we possess. — Ted Dekker

Love can only be found in freedom of choice. And for choice to exist, there must be an alternative to choose. Something as compelling as love. — Ted Dekker

Mine was less a crisis of doctrine than a crisis of experience. — Ted Dekker

Do you believe?
"I believe," he said softly.
What do you believe?
"I believe that I will kill these two to save my wife and son."
Belief. Something about belief mattered greatly. — Ted Dekker

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. — Ted Dekker

You never read Spider-Man? Accepting your true identity means understanding that you are a stranger to this world. A freak, ostracized by the very people you want to help. — Ted Dekker

Like all of my fictions, 'Sinner' is a mirror. Look into it and you will find yourself. What you do with what you see is your choice. — Ted Dekker

So where does Stan fit in this equation? ...
We are told to meditate on scripture, even the hald that details the consequences of evil, the consequent of Jericho and all. Not to pretend out God has somehow changed since the time of Christ. Obviously, Paul's idea of admirable and noble is quite different from ours. God forgives us, Bill. We have mocked His victory by whitewashing the enemy for the sake of our neighbirs approval.
No Greater Love has any man ... — Ted Dekker

Age is like love, it cannot be hid. — Thomas Dekker

I think a woman is born with the desire to hear she is beautiful. — Ted Dekker

No one wanted to look at the common evils of society. Very few were willing to put aside their own pursuit of happiness long enough to consider the effects of greed and jealousy around them. From what she'd seen, humans were essentially troubled. For every one behind bars, another ten deserved to be behind bars, but that would put one in ten Americans behind bars. — Ted Dekker

I was born in St. Andrew's and raised in Kingston then I attended the Alpha Boy's school. — Desmond Dekker

Pape called Basil his sanctuary. In truth we all exist in our own sanctuaries-but I don't mean cathedrals or prisons. I'm talking about our hearts and minds, which imprison us in anxiety, dear, insecurity, anger and other forms of misery. The walls & bars that keep most in a constant state of suffering are thoughts and emotions, not concrete & steel. It's a disease. Insanity. Most are afflicted by it, regardless of which side of the law they find themselves on or where they lay their heads at night. To be free of this, Renee, is to be free indeed. — Ted Dekker

But what was possible or practical had been replaced by a far baser impulse. Hope. — Ted Dekker

The calmest husbands make the stormiest wives. — Thomas Dekker

Though being freed from sin, most remain slaves, blinded and gagged by their own deception. — Ted Dekker

The battle over flesh and blood cannot compare to the battle for the heart. — Ted Dekker

He did change history. He did, he did!" Gabil hopped again, twice, lost his footing, and toppled to the floor. He bounded to his feet and did a little jig of sorts. "Ha! It's fascinating! It's magnicalicious!" "Please, settle down. That's not even a word." "Why not?" Gabil said. "If Thomas can change history, I think I have the right to change a few words. — Ted Dekker

Do but consider what an excellent thing sleep is ... that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together. Who complains of want? of wounds? of cares? of great men's oppressions? of captivity? whilst he sleepeth? Beggars in their beds take as much pleasure kings: can we therefore surfeit on this delicate Ambrosia? Can we drink too much of that whereof to taste too little tumbles us into a churchyard, and to use it but indifferently throws us into Bedlam? No, no, look upon Endymion, the moon's minion, who slept three score and fifteen years, and was not a hair the worse for it. — Thomas Dekker

What was once obvious to them was no longer quite as obvious. Why was it that humans lost sight of truth so quickly? — Ted Dekker

While the older generation is content to sit around and critique culture, that culture is moving beyond them. At some point the traditional church and all of the expressions of that church will become essentially irrelevant. — Ted Dekker

For me, writing is an experience. It's an exercise in which I want to discover myself by taking my characters to the edges of human experience, to the edges of themselves and then, asking certain questions - about love, what does it mean to love? What's beauty? What is true beauty? What does it mean to be insane - crazy? — Ted Dekker

Not being able to find a cause is profoundly distressing; it creates anxiety because it implies a loss of control. The desire to find a cause is driven by fear. — Sidney Dekker

Surely man was not created to be an idle fellow; he was not set in this universal orchard to stand still as a tree. — Thomas Dekker

As soon as I get on my boat, something inside me changes. Then I really feel what living is. — Laura Dekker

And then ...
And then Thomas Hunter dreamed, and the world would never be the same. — Ted Dekker

How can you hope to recognize good and evil for what they truly are if you have no belief in a moral authority greater than yourself? — Ted Dekker

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness cannot understand it — Ted Dekker

You give people a little money and they lose all their manners, even the ones who had manners to begin with. — Ted Dekker

It's neither and it's both. That's the perfect kind of art. Labels only detract from the artist's intention. — Ted Dekker

I've already said you can't take anything from me that I wouldn't freely give you. — Ted Dekker

I never write my stories as a wake-up call as such. I simply explore the kinds of situations that I find personally challenging by placing characters into situations that challenge them in similar ways. — Ted Dekker

With average or even minimum ability, success is still very possible. — Jacob Gelt Dekker

Every breathing soul longs to overcome. — Ted Dekker

Sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together. — Thomas Dekker

My stories are not Christianized at all. I don't even have any Christians in my stories. What they are, are stories about ordinary people going through extraordinary circumstances in which I'm exploring truth. How light overcomes darkness in a way that's unmistakable to anyone who has any kind of faith. — Ted Dekker

The light came into the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it, but that no longer mattered because the light was now obliteration the darkness. — Ted Dekker

A woman needs what a woman needs. — Ted Dekker

When did speaking your beliefs become synonymous with forcing them upon others? — Ted Dekker

This is a labyrinth of wickedness and destruction and pleasure and, above all, love, because in the end it's all just one big, mind-bending love story, isn't it? — Ted Dekker

People tend to react to other people in wholesale rather than in detail, right? He's a minister, so I hate him. She's beautiful, so I like her. One month later you wake up and realize you have nothing in common with the woman. — Ted Dekker

It is. And yet so few really are free. Nearly all people live in prisons of their own making, regardless of their faith, creed, sex or race. — Ted Dekker

A house is kind of scary. — Laura Dekker

Opportunities are always everywhere, learn to see and create them. — Jacob Gelt Dekker

Her fear was gone, not only mostly, but completely, because it had been sustained by an illusion that was no longer part of her reality. The — Ted Dekker

All the media are horrible. — Laura Dekker

Evil was predictable, always painfully expected. — Ted Dekker

Thrillers provide the reader with a safe escape into a dangerous world where the stakes are as high as can be imagined with unpredictable outcomes. It's a perfect genre in which to explore hard issues of good and evil, a mirror that allows the reader to see both the good and not so good in themselves. — Ted Dekker

The four rules of writing ... 1. Write to discover. 2. There is no greater discovery than love. 3. All love comes from the Creator. 4. Write what you will. — Ted Dekker

Then my mother was taken ill and died and my father took me to St. Mary's. — Desmond Dekker

When I sit down to write a novel, I am exploring my own relationship with God, with the struggle between good and evil, my own purpose. — Ted Dekker

It seems as though we Christians have developed a nasty habit of leading people into a radical encounter with God's unconditional love, forgiveness, acceptance, and union only to spend the ensuing years teaching them how to become close to God to earn his approval. — Ted Dekker

Goals are to be set clear without frills. Do not be deterred and take reality as it is, not as it should be. — Jacob Gelt Dekker

My parents have sailed around the world; they know what can happen and that it's not always fun, but because I want to do it so much, they agreed and supported me. — Laura Dekker

The people of this world make a god for themselves in their own image, and in doing so they make God far, far, far, too small. — Ted Dekker

You are the daughter of your Father, inheritor of the Earth, beautiful and blameless, chosen. — Rachelle Dekker

As a 13-year-old girl, it was never my intention to be the center of world news. — Laura Dekker

Everyone is a lonely victim of life's complexity. — Ted Dekker

Valerik spit to one side. "We laugh at religion's brand of love, forms and rules that keep the poor feeding from the church's coffers. It is in deed."
"I agree. That kind of love is porcelain-coated balls of dung.
But what of true affection? ... — Ted Dekker

Most men and women will yield to the strong currents sucking them into the seas of ruin. Only the strongest in mind and spirit will swim against that current. — Ted Dekker

If Slater were someone else, Kevin would merely be the poor victim of a horrible plot. Unless he was killed by Slater, in which case he would be the dead victim of a horrible plot — Ted Dekker

One could keep open secrets only so well before they became a threat to others. — Ted Dekker

Keep your words. This pain is no life." "You only feel pain because you're alive, boy!" the keeper thundered. "This is the mystery of it. Life is lived on the ragged edge of the cliff. Fall off and you might die, but run from it and you are already dead! — Ted Dekker

All my books are very spiritual. I started out writing what was most natural to me, many years ago, which is religious, because I grew up in the jungle, the son of missionaries. I want to know, is God real? What's a priest's role? — Ted Dekker

The world didn't like to look at the dark underside very often. But that didn't change the ugliness; it only ensured that those who perpetuated the ugliness were left alone to kill and maim and rape. — Ted Dekker