Nothing succeeds, they say, like success. And certainly nothing fails like failure.

The women are always vixens or monsters. They can't just be normal people in the book.

Poverty, therefore, was comparative. One measured it by a sliding scale. One was always poor, in terms of those who were richer.

Because if one has an image, however dim and romantic, of a journey's end, one may, in the end, surely reach it, after no matter how many detours and deceptions and abandonings of hope. And hope could never have been entirely abandoned, even in the worst days.

When nothing is sure, everything is possible.

Sometimes it seems the only accomplishment my education ever bestowed on me was the ability to think in quotations.

I need words and print... I need print like an addict. I could live without it, perhaps. But I hope I never have to try.