Bizarre as was the name she bore, Kim Ravenal always said she was thankful it had been no worse.

here in Texas maybe we've got into the habit of confusing bigness with greatness.

I sat staring up at a shelf in my workroom from which thirty-one books identically dressed in neat dark green leather stared back at me with a sort of cold hostility like children who resent their parents. Don't stare at us like that! they said. Don't blame us if we didn't turn out to be the perfection you expected. We didn't ask to be brought into the world.

People permit life to slide past them like a deft pickpocket, their purse-not yet missed and now too late-in his hand.

I suppose it is a gift, being young, but it isn't special. We've all got it, early in life.

Bizarre as was the name she bore, Kim Ravenal always said she was thankful it had been no worse.

Christmas isn't a season. It's a feeling.