I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I'm going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box.

I feel blessed in the knowledge that I probably belong to the last generation that will remember what we call "traditional America."

Don't ever quit. Never quit. Never show anybody you're hurt. Grin and walk through the cannon smoke. It will drive them up the wall. You always stay true to your own principles. You always believe in your gift. God doesn't make mistakes when he presents someone with a gift like that. It's there for a reason. Tell the naysayers, those who reject you, to drop dead! Who cares?

I also believe my home state is cursed by ignorance and poverty and racism, much of it deliberately inculcated to control a vulnerable electorate. And I believe many of the politicians in Louisiana are among the most stomach-churning examples of white trash and venality I have ever known. To me, the fact that large numbers of people find them humorously picaresque is mind numbing, on a level with telling fond tales of one's rapist.

How do you explain to yourself the casual manner in which you threw your life away?

Neither our own passing nor the passing of an era is a tragedy, no matter how much we would like to think it is.

I could only wonder again at the white race's naïveté in always sending forth our worst members as our emissaries.