Darlene Gazzolo > Darlene's Quotes

“Dance. Dance for the joy and breath of childhood. Dance for all children, including that child who is still somewhere entombed beneath the responsibility and skepticism of adulthood. Embrace the moment before it escapes from our grasp. For the only promise of childhood, of any childhood, is that it will someday end. And in the end, we must ask ourselves what we have given our children to take its place. And is it enough?”
― Richard Paul Evans, The Christmas Box Miracle: My Spiritual Journey of Destiny, Healing and Hope

“We spend our life building higher fences and stronger locks, when the gravest dangers are already inside”
― Richard Paul Evans, The Sunflower

“We humans...are seriously flawed. The things that are the most necessary, the most critical to us, are the things we take most for granted. Air. Water. Love.

If you have someone to love, you are lucky. If they love you back, you're blessed. And if you waste the time you have to love them, you're a fool.”
― Richard Paul Evans, The Christmas List

“We carry around in our heads these pictures of what our lives are supposed to look like, painted by the brush of out intentions. It's the great, deep secret of humanity that in the end none of our lives look the way we thought they would. As much as we wish to believe otherwise, most of life is a reaction to circumstances.”
― Richard Paul Evans, The Sunflower

“Nothing heals the soul like chocolate ... It's God's apology for broccoli.”
― Richard Paul Evans

“You want to know what hell is? What brimstone and burining really is?"
Yes"
Hell is the perfect recollection of every evil thing you've done in your life, every thoughtless word, every cruel, evil thought or action. It's knowing that you could have helped your brother and didn't. Hell is clarity, Bob. It's nothing more than clarity." He leaned forward as if to confide in me, his gaze intense. "Do you want to know what heaven is?"
I was locked into his gaze. "Yes."
His voice was barely above a whisper, "It's the same thing.”
― Richard Paul Evans, A Perfect Day

“I've come to know that what we want in life is the greatest indication of who we really are.”
― Richard Paul Evans, The Gift

“I have learned a great truth of life. We do not succeed in spite of our challenges and
difficulties, but rather, precisely because of them.”
― Richard Paul Evans, The Looking Glass

“To choose the path is to choose the destination, but sometimes it seems that the path is under our feet even before we know we're walking.”
― Richard Paul Evans

“It is in the dark times that the light of friendship shines brightest.”
― Richard Paul Evans, The Walk

“We love those whom we serve (p. 26)”
― Richard Paul Evans, The Christmas Box Miracle: My Spiritual Journey of Destiny, Healing and Hope

“Some people deal with their problems by talking them to death. In fact, some enjoy the execution so much they resurrect their problems just so they can kill them again.-Nathan Hurst”
― Richard Paul Evans, The Gift

“The universe is a trillion, trillion threads moving in seemingly unrelated directions. Yet when you look at them together, they create a remarkable tapestry.”
― Richard Paul Evans

“It was the first time that I had ever been romantically kissed. It was even better than the chocolate cake.”
― Richard Paul Evans, Grace

“I’ve come to know that what we want in life is the
greatest indication of who we really are.”
― Richard Paul Evans, The Gift

“…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, The Looking Glass

“I think the secret to a hoppy life is a selective memory. Remember what you are most grateful for and quickly forget what your not.”
― Richard Paul Evans, Grace

“Regret is the most tiresome of companions.”
― Richard Paul Evans

“The truest grace is not to forgive, but to have never found fault.”
― Richard Paul Evans

“Small kindnesses often, unintentionally, produce the biggest payoffs.”
― Richard Paul Evans, The Gift

“The human life cycle no less than evolves around the box; from the open-topped box called a bassinet, to the pine box we call a coffin, the box is our past and, just as assuredly, our future. It should not surprise us then that the lowly box plays such a significant role in the first Christmas story. For Christmas began in a humble, hay-filled box of splintered wood. The Magi, wise men who had traveled far to see the infant king, laid treasure-filled boxes at the feet of that holy child. And in the end, when He had ransomed our sins with His blood, the Lord of Christmas was laid down in a box of stone. How fitting that each Christmas season brightly wrapped boxes skirt the pine boughs of Christmas trees around the world. ”
― Richard Paul Evans, The Christmas Box

“Magna est veritas, et praevalebit: truth is mighty, and will prevail”
― Richard Paul Evans, The Locket