Childhood was terrifying for me. A kid has no control. You’re three feet tall, flat broke, unemployed, and illiterate. Terror snaps you awake. You pay keen attention. People can just pick you up and move you and put you down.

I do have a really good memory. I mean, like, I can remember all the phone numbers of everybody on the street I grew up on.

I don't have a copy of my books, and the degree to which I never read them is profound. I never look.

I'm bred for farm work, and for such folk, the only A's you get come from effort. Strife and strain are all the world can offer, and they temper you into something unbreakable because Lord knows they'll try -- without let up -- to break you.

There are women succeeding beyond their wildest dreams because of their sobriety.

If you live in the dark a long time and the sun comes out, you do not cross into it whistling. There's an initial uprush of relief at first, then-for me, anyway- a profound dislocation. My old assumptions about how the world works are buried, yet my new ones aren't yet operational.There's been a death of sorts, but without a few days in hell, no resurrection is possible.

The words and sentences you take into your body from books are no less sacred and healing than communion. Surely at least one such person lives in your zip code.