Ted Dekker famous quotes

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

#Light #Shining #Darkness

Prayer may just be the most powerful tool mankind has.” ~Blink
-- Ted Dekker

#Powerful #Prayer #May

There’s a reason we are drawn to the light. A reason why we fear darkness. It’s important to be terrified and unnerved about certain things. That way we will choose another path. The path that leads us to truth and love.
-- Ted Dekker

#Light #Darkness #Important

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

#Writing #Discovery #Four

The world’s bumper sticker reads: Life sucks, and then you die. Perhaps Christian bumper stickers should read: Life sucks, but then you find hope and you can’t wait to die.
-- Ted Dekker

#Positive #Christian #Thinking

Where is God? Where can I find him?" we ask. We don't realize that's like a fish swimming frantically through the ocean in search OF the ocean
-- Ted Dekker

#Ocean #Swimming #Realizing

Pain or perspective, that's the choice.' . . . You choose pain - you choose to fight it, deny it, bury it - then yes, the choice is always hard. But you choose perspective - embrace your history, give it credit for the better person it can make you, scars and all - the choice gets easier every time.
-- Ted Dekker

#Pain #Fighting #Giving

We Christian writers must paint evil with the blackest of brushes, not to sow fear, but to call out the monsters to be scattered by our light. If Satan cloaks himself as an angel of white, intent on deceiving the world, any attempt on our parts to minimize evil is only complicit with his strategy... Turn to the light; don’t fear the shadows it creates.
-- Ted Dekker

#Christian #Angel #White

Dive deep. Drown willingly
-- Ted Dekker

In the end you will be your own undoing. You can't escape you.
-- Ted Dekker

#Ends #Undoing

A person who finds silence and solitude boring is a person who is himself boring, empty of anything worth consideration.
-- Ted Dekker

#Silence #Solitude #Boring

Sin thrives in the dungeon, but slap it on the table for all to see, and it withers rather quickly.
-- Ted Dekker

#Tables #Dungeons #Sin

God is with me. Jesus is near. The Spirit is greater than my fear.
-- Ted Dekker

#Jesus #Spirit

...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

#Strong #Men #Sea

Knowing you’re worthless doesn’t give you value any more than knowing you are a captive sets you free.
-- Ted Dekker

#Knowing #Giving #Values

Suffering is an oxymoron. There is unfathomable peace and satisfaction in suffering for Christ. It is as though you have searched endlessly for your purpose in life and now found it in the most unexpected place: In the death of your flesh. It is certainly a moment worth of laughter and dance. And in the end it is not suffering at all. The apostle Paul recommended that we find joy in it. Was he mad?
-- Ted Dekker

#Laughter #Mad #Joy

There’s different ways to be impacted by truth. One is to read the scriptures. Another is to read other works by other people who have read the scriptures, non fiction for example. Another is to do studies. Another is to go to a place of worship. Another thing is to sit and listen to someone who’s speaking. There’s all kinds of ways. Another way is to write. About the truth. Discover the struggle through your character.
-- Ted Dekker

#Struggle #Writing #Character

Perfect, that's our plan then. But you'll have to give up being a priest first. I wouldn't want to just sit around whispering and sipping hot chocolate.
-- Ted Dekker

#Giving Up #Perfect #Chocolate

Our lives hang in the balance of unpredictable situations. One minute you're driving down the road whistling a tune, the next moment the car right in front of you spins out of control and crashes. How you prepare for those unpredictable occurrences determines whether you live or die. Always leave an empty lane to your right or left for escape.
-- Ted Dekker

#Car #Balance #Next

The problem with any philosophical consideration is that once you open a door in your mind, you can never close it. Once you learn something, you can never convince your mind that you didn't learn it. If you learn the world is round, you can never fit in with a world that thinks it's flat.
-- Ted Dekker

#Philosophical #Thinking #Doors

To love in any way is to be like a child—it means to be vulnerable, to be wide-eyed, to be selfless. There is no such thing as free love; love is the most costly expression in the world. To love romantically is to give of oneself fully and completely, a merging and meshing of souls so that the twain become a unity. It is to allow the sense of wonder to fully enrapture.
-- Ted Dekker

#Children #Mean #Love Is

Living is about clucking your tongue and enjoying the sound. ~Slater
-- Ted Dekker

#Tongue #Sound #Enjoy

God is obviouslt God, and Heaven obviously exsists, and every word spoken here on earth turns heads up there.
-- Ted Dekker

#Real #Heaven #Earth

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

#Dear

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

#Risk #Pursuit #Risks In Life

I think everything we do, on one level or another, as writers, most of our writing is informed by our world view. It's informed by our own understanding of spirituality; things that matter, things that are important to us. I write about things that matter for me.
-- Ted Dekker

#Writing #Thinking #Our World

If you could find a way to peel back the skin of this world so to speak, would you really see this supernatural reality that is greater? Is it true that we fight not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers? Every young person wants to know.
-- Ted Dekker

#Fighting #Reality #Blood

It is critical that writers who embrace the light of Christ's redemptive love characterize the darkness arrayed against us in a way that is consistent with its true nature.
-- Ted Dekker

#Light #Darkness #Way

It's critical that we use a very dark brush to paint evil. When you bring the light into that darkness as characterized in John 1, that light is very vivid. When it dispels the darkness, we see the brilliance that's there.
-- Ted Dekker

#Dark #Light #Evil

Most believers struggle to really believe in the supernatural as a meaningful, deterministic reality except during moments when they are drawn to it, perhaps during a worship service or while reading a novel like 'Adam.' Being drawn to this truth is the first step to living a life in accordance to this truth.
-- Ted Dekker

#Meaningful #Believe #Struggle

My first seven novels were contemporary spiritual novels, my next nine had strong elements of fantasy, and now I'm writing thrillers, more as a choice to spread my wings than anything. Writers, like good wine, should mature with age.
-- Ted Dekker

#Spiritual #Strong #Wine

My research for 'Adam' affected me profoundly, particularly the research into evil's underbelly. We tend not to think about evil until it pokes its head out of the air about us and then it tends to scare us silly. As well it should.
-- Ted Dekker

#Silly #Thinking #Air

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

#Christian #Light #People

My writing is a very authentic journey of discovery. I'm going out there to learn who I am. My readers, consequently, take the same journey as my protagonist.
-- Ted Dekker

#Writing #Journey #Discovery

If readers, young and old, would take even a moment to reflect on our rapidly shifting culture and ideology, I would be happy. Many leaders of the older generation dismiss emerging culture. Those leaders are at risk of becoming a feeble voice-piece without followers. Most of the younger generation is going deaf to the truth.
-- Ted Dekker

#Voice #Leader #Risk

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

#Religious #Philosophy #Writing

He was as needy as she was. Alvin Finch only wanted to be needed. Loved. And absent of either, he resorted to deflecting his pain by killing. Just like a teenager might resort to deflecting the pain of rejection by cutting. People did a lot of crazy things to be wanted.
-- Ted Dekker

#Pain #Crazy #Teenager

I think everything we do, on one level or another, as writers, most of our writing is informed by our world view.
-- Ted Dekker

#Writing #Thinking #Views

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

#Struggle #Writing #Evil

Writing wasn't about making money. I wanted to find fulfillment in writing and telling stories, and that's what's driven me.
-- Ted Dekker

#Writing #Stories #Making Money

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

#Spiritual #Religious #Real

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?
-- Ted Dekker

#Character #Mean #Writing

I always managed to get in trouble, like every kid. But I had to learn a lot of hard lessons on my own, without parents who would nurture me and guard me through that part of life, at a very young age.
-- Ted Dekker

#Kids #Parent #Age

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

#Character #Writing #Challenges

What matters is discovering myself under the veneer, under the layers that are wrapped around me. There are two 'yous'; there's 'you', the real you, and then there's the image.
-- Ted Dekker

#Real #Two #What Matters

I sell ideas. Actually, if you think about it, everything is really no more than idea. The past is nothing more than a memory, which is one kind of idea. The future is still a hope, another kind of idea. The present is fleeting and becomes a memory before you can put your hands on it. All ideas. I sell ideas.
-- Ted Dekker

#Memories #Thinking #Past

Whenever you write on a subject that questions the status quo, there are bound to be many who wrestle with the issues
-- Ted Dekker

#Writing #Issues #Status Quo

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

#Writing #Mirrors #Discovery

Anything unnatural was not naturally believed. Faith, in essence, was unnatural.
-- Ted Dekker

#Essence

The light had simply and utterly destroyed the darkness.
-- Ted Dekker

#Light #Darkness

I BELIEVE!!!!!!!" - Johnny
-- Ted Dekker

#Believe #I Believe

She suddenly began to jump up and down, screaming at the top of her lungs. "The arks are after me! The arks are after me! Help me, the arks are after me!" .... "The arks! You don't understand, I have the ring and the arks are after me!" .... (and so the police officer is puzzled long enough for Miriam and Seth to escape)
-- Ted Dekker

#Long #Police #Ark

. . . your history is no less important to your survival than your ability to breathe. In the end, you can only determine whether to saturate your memories with pain or with perspective. Forgetting is not an option. I tell you the truth now: Pain was not God's plan for this life. It is a reality, but it is not a part of the plan.
-- Ted Dekker

#Pain #Memories #Reality

You should know something, Miriam.... God changed our futures yesterday. There's no other explanation for what happened. And it wasn't the first God. If you ever need hlep, you might want to try the second God.
-- Ted Dekker

#Yesterday #Trying #Want

Born of Black and White, Eaten with worms, I'm a Saint, a Sinner, a Siren of the Word, The Circle knows me, the rest just wanna trip on Grace Juice, Baby Showdown at midnight
-- Ted Dekker

#Baby #Black And White #Circles

Turn to the light. Don't fear the shadow it creates.
-- Ted Dekker

#Light #Shadow #Turns