What you say is what matters.

You can't always be pushing people away. Someday nobody'll come back.

Lately, I'd been feeling like I was standing outside watching everything and everybody. Wishing I could take the part of me that was over there and the part of me that was over here and push them together—make myself into one whole person like everybody else.

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.

For me as a writer, it was understanding that we're so far behind in our way of dealing with death. We put someone in the ground, we bury them or we burn them, and then we're supposed to just move on and kind of get over it.

I loved and still love watching words flower into sentences and sentences blossom into stories.

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.