What molds us is what maims us.

Charm was the luxury of those who still believed in the essential rightness of things. In purity and picket fences.

The best thing that can happen to people entering creative professions is the dwindling of all other possibilities.

There are so many more important things to worry about than how you're perceived by strangers.

I believe so deeply in the primacy of language, in lifting your prose to the highest level you're capable of and making your words symphonic.

My daughter squealed again and both Bubba and I winced. It’s not an attractive sound, that. It’s high-pitched and it enters your ear canals like hot glass. No matter how much I love my daughter, I will never love her squealing. Or maybe I will. Maybe I do. Driving down 93, I realized once and for all, that I love the things that chafe. The things that fill me with stress so total I can’t remember when a block of it didn’t rest on top of my heart. I love what, if broken, can’t be repaired. What, if lost can’t be replaced. I love my burdens.

If you are deemed insane, then all actions that would oherwise prove you are not do, in actuality, fall into the framework of an insane person’s actions. Your sound protests constitute denial. Your valid fears are deemed paranoia. Your survival instincts are labeled defense mechanisms. It’s a no-win situation. It’s a death penalty really.