To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.

I live in an atmosphere of music.

No not me go find someone else to bring down

To take a few nouns, and a few pronouns, and adverbs and adjectives, and put them together, ball them up, and throw them against the wall to make them bounce. That's what Norman Mailer did. That's what James Baldwin did, and Joan Didion did, and that's what I do - that's what I mean to do.

She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy.

The first thing I do in the morning when I awaken is say, 'Thank you, Lord!' I'm grateful to be alive, and I'm going to try to tell the truth as well as I know and tell it as eloquently as I can so that people can hear it.

You think you may not be heard. Speak anyway.