At first I read mostly books by Southern authors - black and white - because almost all the people I knew were born and raised in the South, starting with my mother. I remember I got a lot of Erskine Caldwell.

When you grow up with a mother who has to wash dishes and clean hotel rooms, you know the importance of having a job, and you cant be without a job for any length of time, or you will be without anything.

Calvin had long been uneasy in his own person and so lived to put everyone else at ease.

The hitter can never be the judge. Only the receiver of the blow can tell you how hard it was, whether it would kill a man or make a baby just yawn.

Until I can read a story physically, with the eyes, it doesn't seem to exist for me.

We are all worthy of one another.

In journalism, a fact is just a fact. But in fiction, you have to build your case. It has to be made, step by step.