Our worst pain is confined within our own skin.

[No] matter what a waste one has made of one's life, it is ever possible to find some path to redemption, however partial.

I had never taken creative writing classes. Hadn't even considered it.

You never know when somebody will pull you to them.

People who are isolated interest me, whether they isolate themselves or have been isolated by circumstances.

I met people when we lived down in Raleigh who'd ask where I grew up, and I'd say about two hours west of Asheville, and they'd say they didn't know there was any North Carolina two hours west of Asheville. It was in many ways an isolated place.

The Sixties were different in an isolated place. We got two television channels if the wind was blowing in the right direction. The radio stations went off at sundown. Then you picked up Chicago and heard the teenage music you really yearned for.