People talk about books that write themselves, and it's a lie. Books don't write themselves. It takes thought and research and backache and notes and more time and more work than you'd believe.

Children, as I have said, use back ways and hidden paths, while adults take roads and official paths.

Virginia is the place, where, technologically speaking, they will burn people at the stake for possessing such things as toasters.

Anyone who calls you "little lady" has already excluded you from the set of people worth listening to.

Mostly you are what they think you are.

We wrapped our dreams in words and patterned the words so that they would live forever, unforgettable.

We build a shell around it, like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function , day in, day out. Immune to others’ pain and loss.