Here is all I ask of a book- give me everything. Everything, and don't leave out a single word.

To describe our growing up in the lowcountry of South Carolina, I would have to take you to the marsh on a spring day, flush the great blue heron from its silent occupation, scatter marsh hens as we sink to our knees in mud, open an oyster with a pocketknife and feed it to you from the shell and say, 'There. That taste. That's the taste of my childhood.'

I've never cackled with laughter at a single line I've ever written. None of it has given me pleasure.

Why do they not teach you that time is a finger snap and an eye blink, and that you should not allow a moment to pass you by without taking joyous, ecstatic note of it, not wasting a single moment of its swift, breakneck circuit?

I think I learned about the relationship between books and life from Margaret Mitchell.

The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life.

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