Behind the story I tell is the one I don't...Behind the story you hear is the one I wish I could make you hear.

my life has been saved over and over again by picking up a book in which someone captured the whole experience of being despised and not dying.

I did things I did not understand for reasons I could not begin to explain just to be in motion, to be trying to do something, change something in a world I wanted desperately to make over but could not imagine for myself.

If I could have found what I needed at thirteen, I would not have lost so much of my life chasing vindication or death. Give some child, some thirteen-year old, the hope of the remade life. Tell the truth. Write the story that you were always afraid to tell. I swear to you there is magic in it.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is the way you can both hate and love something you are not sure you understand.

Don't go taking that gospel stuff seriously. It's nice to clean you out now and then, but it ain't for real. It's like bad whiskey. Run through you fast and leave you with pain.

One of the strengths I derive from my class background is that I am accustomed to contempt.