Southerners have many fine qualities, charm and civility among them, and a sense of the tragic.

I think it's the people who have no doubt that every word they put down is gold that probably don't write very well.

But victimhood was seductive, a release from responsibility and caring. Fear would be transmuted into weary resignation; failure would no longer generate guilt but, instead, would spawn a comforting self-pity.

Loyal companions are an unequaled grace, stanching fear before it bleeds you numb, a reliable antidote for creeping despair.

There's still a fascination with somebody who can write at book length, no matter what the book is.

In misfortune lies the seed of future triumph.

If one's friends do not openly laugh at him, they are not in fact his friends.