We spend so much of our passion on our first love. I'm not convinced that it-passion-is one of those things that you have an endless amount of-like happiness or sadness. I could be happy all day. I could be sad all day. But I'm not so sure I'll ever love like that again.

In the year since we brought things into the open with a clean breath of fresh air at City Hall, we have learned about corrupt spending practices and unethical conflicts of interest that waste your money... and keep Dallas from being the great city of our dreams.

Writers would be warm, loyal, and otherwise terrific people-if only they'd stop writing.

People like to complain about the state of contemporary literature, but I can only assume they don't read it very widely.

Make no mistake, the organizations website counsels. You will be writing a lot of crap. And thats a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. I am not the first person to point out that writing a lot of crap doesnt sound like a particularly fruitful way to spend an entire month, even if it is November.

A faint smell of lilac filled the air. There was always lilac in this part of town. Where there were grandmothers, there was always lilac.

The past is a very determined ghost, haunting every chance it gets.