No one should have to go back to the place where she had once been a girl.

My novels are very much the same, as I think many people's novels are.

We have different kinds of intimacy with many, many people. I'm disappointed by well-written novels that only deal with two or three people.

I will go and speak at rotary clubs. I will go and speak at schools. I'm so much in the community, but in a way that I love. It's been such a positive thing.

Home, bed, sleep, mother--who knew more beautiful words than these?

He believed that life, true life, was something that was stored in music. True life was kept safe in the lines of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin while you went out in the world and met the obligations required of you. Certainly he knew (though did not completely understand) that opera wasn't for everyone, but for everyone he hoped there was something. The records he cherished, the rare opportunities to see a live performance, those were the marks by which he gauged his ability to love.

The thing you can count on in life is that Tennessee will always be scorching hot in August.