If smallness was fortune, then I had come across a treasure, infinitesimal and beyond value. I felt lucky. You had to decide what was estimable and precious in your life and set out to find it. The objects you valued defined you.

All life connects ... Nothing happens that is meaningless.

In families, there are no crimes beyond forgiveness.

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

I had come to a place where I was meant to be. I don't mean anything so prosaic as a sense of coming home. This was different, very different. It was like arriving at a place much safer than home.

South Carolina is not a state; it is a cult.

I've always believed that dreams were both the love letters and the hate mail of the subconscious.