Mainly, I try not to think about my readers as I write - I just think of my characters and myself - If they're interesting to me, my hope is that they'll be interesting to others as well.

To watch your home change in front of you is surprising. But at the same time, going someplace like Mississippi, makes me appreciate even this.

Don't trust women, my mother said to me. Even the ugly ones will take what you thought was yours.

I'm always wondering if he'll return. Sometimes I pray that he doesn't. And sometimes I hope he will. I wish on falling stars and eyelashes. Absence isn't solid the way death is. It's fluid, like language. And it hurts so much...so, so much.

If I loved someone enough, I would go anywhere in the world with them." —Staggerlee

Mama was always saying I was a brain snob, that I didn't like people who didn't think. I didn't know if that was snobby. Who wanted to walk around explaining everything to people all the time?

One place exists as their interpretation of it. For the people living and thriving inside of it, it's another place.