We did not have a television while I was growing up, and so I read voraciously. My earliest memory of being utterly transfixed by a book was Madeleine L'Engle's 'A Wrinkle in Time.'

I love to learn, and at some level, there's something to learn from my books. And I love art and philosophy, so there's something philosophical about my fiction.

I feel like if I'm going to take time reading, I better be learning.

My sincere hope is that 'The Da Vinci Code,' in addition to entertaining people, will serve as an open door to begin their own explorations.

You're only as good as your last song. That's something somebody told me, and it's so true. You've just gotta keep putting yourself out there, even promoting 'God Made Girls.'

God has been faithful time and again to surround me with people that sharpen me and that make me better.

Uncontrolled, the hunger and thirst after God may become an obstacle, cutting off the soul from what it desires. If a man would travel far along the mystic road, he must learn to desire God intensely but in stillness, passively and yet with all his heart and mind and strength.

It is ironic you could make an animated film about a dog that's a universal character, but God forbid it be a human being who is not a man.