That's one of the privileges of old age - you can give plenty of advice 'cause most folks think that's all you got left anyway.

It's as if I've arrived in a place where it's all spirit and no body -- an overwhelming sense of calm . . . I actually began to feel blessed.

You can't teach talent. You can't put in what God left out - but you can teach confidence.

Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes.

One should be able to return to the first sentence of a novel and find the resonances of the entire work.

Writers are voracious readers. Once I unlocked the mystery of the alphabet that led to words, a multitude of words connecting me to the world, there was no stopping me. Everything was fair game, from Louisa May Alcott to my older cousin's True Romance Magazines, from Lewis Carroll to the backs of cereal boxes. All of this fed me, but it took certain books to make me grow. I don't want to work without a sense of drama, without passion, or without both eyes open to the world around me.

black isn't beautiful and it isn't ugly - black is! It's not kinky hair and it's not straight hair - it just is.