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

Nothing changes what alreaday happened. It will always have happened. You either let it break you down or you don't.

From my childhood, I remember a tiny old woman named Mary, made pale and almost translucent by time. Mary's childhood memories extended back to the confusing and violent finale of the Civil War, and she told stories of brutal murders in those days and refused to name some of the killers, as if dead men might still be prosecuted in the late 1950s.

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

If I had to give up reading or give up listening to music, I suspect I'd stick with the music.

He was himself a case in point, and perhaps not a rare one, for his spirit, it seemed, had been burned out of him but he was yet walking.

That's just pain she said. It goes eventually. And when it's gone, there's no lasting memory. Not the worst of it anyway. It fades. Our minds aren't made to hold on to the particulars of pain the way we do bliss. It's a gift God gives us, a sign of His care for us.