I shudder at the very thought of being born again into this world. Life to me . . . has been a monstrous, painful, agonizing affair, and the idea of … - Taylor Caldwell

From my early childhood Lucanus, or Luke, the great Apostle, has obsessed my mind. He was the only Apostle who was not a Jew. He never saw Christ. All that is written in his eloquent but restrained Gospel he acquired from hearsay, from witnesses, from the Mother of Christ, from disciples, and from the Apostles. His first visit to Israel took place almost a year after the Crucifixion. Yet he became one of the greatest of the Apostles. Like Saul of Tarsus, later to be known as Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, he believed that Our Lord came not only to the Jews but to the Gentiles, also. He had much in common with Paul, because Paul too had never seen the Christ. Each had had an individual revelation. These two men had difficulty with the original Apostles because the latter stubbornly believed for a considerable time that Our Lord was incarnated, and died, only for the salvation of the Jews, even after Pentecost. Why has St. Luke always obsessed me, and why have I always loved him from childhood? I do not know. I can only quote Friedrich Nietzsche on this matter: "One hears — one does not seek; one does not ask who gives — I have never had any choice about it."

About half of my published novels were written before I was published. So I didn’t write a book every two years, as some people think. Writing — I exist only for that. It’s the most important thing in my life. It’s not apart from me. I have no other interests, except cooking. I don’t belong to any organizations, clubs — I don’t go to lunches. This is my life, the most important thing — far more important than anything else I do. It has to be that way, otherwise you’re just a hobbyist. Now, a painter needs only to know the technique of his painting, and he has to have a tremendous emotional response to it. Musicians, sculptors — the same way. But they don’t have to know about everything. A writer does.

It is a stern fact of history that no nation that rushed to the abyss ever turned back. Not ever, in the long history of the world. We are now on the edge of the abyss. Can we, for the first time in history, turn back? It is up to you.