There's no word in the language I revere more than 'teacher.' My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher, and it always has. I've honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming a teacher.

It is the secret life that sustains me now, and as I reach the top of that bridge I say it in a whisper, I say it as a prayer, as regret, and as praise. I can't tell you why I do it or what it means, but each night when I drive toward my southern home and my southern life, I whisper these words: 'Lowenstein, Lowenstein.

I stood face to face with the moon and the ocean and the future that spread out with all its bewildering immensity before me.

I meet kids now who become novelists, poets, write for the theater and movies, who were simply inspired by what they saw during the Spoleto Festival.

I would always be a better hater of things and institutions than a lover of them.

She thought she brought a gift of compassion for those exhausted souls who had not received a chest portion from the people who raised them. If compassion and therapy did not work, she could always send her patients to the local pharmacy for drugs.

One of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family.