Language is the tool of my trade -and I use them all - all the Englishes I grew up with

You can have pride in what you do each day, but not arrogance in what you were born with.

I felt foolish and tired, as if I had been running to escape someone chasing me, only to look behind to discover there was no one there.

That is the saddest part when you lose someone you love - that person keeps changing. And later you wonder, Is this the same person I lost? Maybe you lost more maybe less, then thousand different things that come from your memory or imagination - and you do not know which is which, which was true, which is false.

If I now recognize evil in other people, is it not because I have become evil too?

You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's faults, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind that he is beneath you socially, educationally, financially, and morally--that's the worst, I think, deficient morals. (Saving Fish From Drowning)

Words to me were magic. You could say a word and it could conjure up all kinds of images or feelings or a chilly sensation or whatever. It was amazing to me that words had this power.