After owning a pool, I think the best way to enjoy the water is to have a friend who has a pool.

Living in a small Italian hilltown, and having lived in a small town in south Georgia, I understand that you can recognize a family gene pool by the lift of an eyebrow, or the length of a neck, or a way of walking.

I got the idea that to write books would be the best way to spend a life. I never thought of anything else that seemed like half as much fun, although in my next life I would like to be an architect, too, so I can have an easier time restoring houses.

Five tender apricots in a blue bowl, a brief and exact promise of things to come.

Where you are is who you are. The further inside you the place moves, the more your identity is intertwined with it. Never casual, the choice of place is the choice of something you crave.

I’ll always marvel at the liveliness of southern speech-so full of metaphor and hyperbole, quirks and vividness.

Life offers you a thousand chances... all you have to do is take one.