She would be a new person, she vowed. They said no matter how far a mule travels it can never come back a horse, but she would show them all.

but back then, in those first days, I was so alone that every day was like eating my own heart.

An ear will never do you wrong, but I know writers who... most of the language they use is just extracted language from other languages they've read. I am a big-time reader, but I mix and match.

What we [writers] do might be done in solitude and with great desperation, but it tends to produce exactly the opposite. It tends to produce community and in many people hope and joy.

For a long time, I let my mother say what she wanted about me, and what was worse, for a long time I believed her.

Clavo saca clavo. Nothing sacas nothing, you reply. No one will ever be like her.

I guess it's true what they say: if you wait long enough everything changes.