"I do not use profanity in my novels. My characters all go to church"
About this Quote
The second sentence does the heavier lifting. “My characters all go to church” reads less like a realist detail than a cultural password. It folds religiosity into respectability, implying that decency isn’t simply shown through behavior, but confirmed through affiliation. The subtext flirts with a familiar American equation: clean speech + churchgoing = good people, worthy love, worthy grief. That’s not a neutral aesthetic; it’s a worldview. And it also functions as a preemptive defense against critics who might accuse his work of being sentimental or formulaic. If the emotional pitch is high, the moral frame must be stable.
Context matters: Sparks’s success is built on stories that aim straight at the tear ducts, and his audience often expects romance to come with an implicit code of conduct. This quote reassures them that his novels won’t just break your heart; they’ll do it politely, with the lights on, in a town where everyone knows the hymns.
Quote Details
| Topic | Faith |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Sparks, Nicholas. (2026, January 15). I do not use profanity in my novels. My characters all go to church. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-do-not-use-profanity-in-my-novels-my-characters-152509/
Chicago Style
Sparks, Nicholas. "I do not use profanity in my novels. My characters all go to church." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-do-not-use-profanity-in-my-novels-my-characters-152509/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I do not use profanity in my novels. My characters all go to church." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-do-not-use-profanity-in-my-novels-my-characters-152509/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.







