Quotes by John Eldredge

"Validation comes to us in two ways: through trials we overcome, and through the words of older men."

"The more that you come to know Jesus for who He really is, loving Him is not a problem."

"Just like sunshine affects others, when the life of Jesus invades your life, you become a loving person. The effect on others is amazing."

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself, 'What makes me come alive?' Because what the world - a wife, a child - needs is men who have come alive."

"I have a call to speak, to write, to do sort of deep-heart surgery in people's lives."

"Falling in love with God is the most important thing a person can do."

"Reading the Gospels, without the personality of Jesus, is like watching television with the sound turned off."

"What strikes me about Jesus is that he is a remarkably true person; he never changes his personality to fit in with whatever crowd he finds himself. He is simply himself, and he never plays to his audience."

"We have a Father, and He cares about our internal world - issues of motive, issues of fear, issues of validation."

"I started working at Focus on the Family doing debates and media and cultural studies."

"The early Celtic Christians called the Holy Spirit 'the wild goose.' And the reason why is they knew that you cannot tame him."

"Christianity has basically communicated to men that the reason God put you on this Earth is to be a good boy. Mind your manners, be a nice guy. That's soul killing!"

"It takes enormous strength to be a real woman."

"It takes great courage to be vulnerable. It takes enormous strength to be a real woman."

"It was men who stopped slavery. It was men who ran up the stairs in the Twin Towers to rescue people. It was men who gave up their seats on the lifeboats of the Titanic. Men are made to take risks and live passionately on behalf of others."

"Most of us live in a fog. It's like life is a movie we arrived to 20 minutes late. You know something important seems to be going on. But we can't figure out the story. We don't know what part we're supposed to play or what the plot is."

"If only Jesus' followers shared his personality. That one shift alone would correct so many of the ridiculous and horrifying things that pass for popular Christianity."

"I'm married. I have three children. I have a mortgage to pay. The plumbing breaks and the yard needs trimming. However, what my wife and children need most from me is my passion for them."

"I wasn't looking for religion; I was looking for a world view."

"We don't live in the Garden. We live far from Eden. Every life is full of heartaches. Every life, frankly, is unspeakably sad."

"I don't write anything that I haven't lived. In terms of integrity, you have to write what you live. And if you write beyond what you live, it is theory. And theory is not helpful. It is just not."

"When a woman forsakes her vulnerability because she's been hurt or because she lives in a dangerous world or doesn't want to be used, she loses something essential about being a woman."

"The guy who sits in front of the television is unengaged. That man is a bad man."

"To be in theater you have to be a kind of psychologist, for you're always trying to understand character and motives."

"Most Christians are still living with an Old Testament view of their heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says, 'My heart is deceitfully wicked.' No, it's not. Not after the work of Christ, because the promise of the new covenant is a new heart."