Beauty, my first girlfriend said to me, is that inner quality often associated with great amounts of leisure time.

Write the story that you were always afraid to tell. I swear to you that there is magic in it, and if you show yourself naked for me, I'll be naked for you. It will be our covenant.

Beauty, my first girlfriend said to me, is that inner quality often associated with great amounts of leisure time.

Babies change things, open doors you thought were shut, close others. Make you into something you never been.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that if we are not beautiful to each other, we cannot know beauty in any form.

Writing is the only way I know to demand justice from an uncaring universe.

And of course these days I feel like there is a nation of us - displaced southerners and children of the working class. We listen to Steve Earle, Mary J. Blige, and k.d. lang. We devour paperback novels and tell evil mean stories, value stubbornness above patience and a sense of humor more than a college education. We claim our heritage with a full appreciation of how often it has been disdained. And let me promise you, you do not want to make us angry.