There is such a thing as too much beauty in a woman and it is often a burden as crippling as homeliness and far more dangerous. It takes much luck and integrity to survive the gift of perfect beauty, and its impermanence is its most cunning betrayal.

Because she deserved my tears if anyone on earth ever did. I could feel the tears within me, undiscovered, and untouched in their inland sea. Those tears had been with me always.

The University of South Carolina has always played a role in my life and the intellectual life of South Carolina.

It's impossible to explain to a Yankee what `tacky' is. They simply have no word for it up north, but my God, do they ever need one.

There is no downside to winning. It feels forever fabulous.

These are the quicksilver moments of my childhood I cannot remember entirely. Irresistible and emblematic, I can recall them only in fragments and shivers of the heart.

(You) don't leave the chicken to watch the feed.