I think we all get too caught up in doing instead of just being sometimes.

Life can only be kept by giving it away. But then it will bloom.

Somebody said writing is easy, you just sit down at your typewriter and open a vein. It depends on the book. Some, I have to do quite a lot of research, which I like. Others are much closer to me.

Laughter nibbled at my lips like tiny fish in warm water.

I think every creative impulse that a working writer, or artist of any sort has, comes out of that dark old country where dreams come from.

That sinuous southern life, that oblique and slow and complicated old beauty, that warm thick air and blood warm sea, that place of mists and languor and fragrant richness.

I don't know if I would do sequels. I almost feel like when I'm done with them, they're going to have to find their own way.